


No One

by BlackApology



Series: No One [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-04 04:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 40,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackApology/pseuds/BlackApology
Summary: She was born with a power, taken from her own time, and thrust in a world where people out of time seem to be a common thing. Join Steve, Bucky, and their new companion as they brave dangers both in this new time and in their memories, while learning to trust both themselves and each other.





	1. Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. As I said on my profile my stories were originally only on ff.n, but it was brought to my attention that some countries don't have access to ff.n. So I'm posting all my works here. Please enjoy.

Chapter 1  
Once Upon a Time  
(I Was Someone)  
I was an experiment born with a power; unheard of yet by any of the scientists, and that made the experiments long and painful, excruciating and endless. Training was hard and the missions were worse, but they never wiped my memory, simply altered it when insanity was a threat.  
I wish they had.  
...  
Once upon a time, I had a name. Looking back on it now all I can remember is a light feeling in my gut, a tinkle of bells in my ears, but that's it, and there's nothing tangible in those half-forgotten memories, so for a while I was simply Asset. It's what They called me, and aside from the memories, that's all I had. On the streets I forgot that title and became No One, because I wasn’t anyone; I didn’t have a purpose. But it wasn’t a name; I didn’t have a name. Just as with Asset, No One is just a title; a description.  
Ever since escaping My Room I've been on my own, but really, I've always been on my own. From my time as the Asset I was usually on my own, aside from the scientists who hurt me and pushed me past my limits and the other experiments and Assets who hurt me and who I hurt as well. Thinking back on half-forgotten memories, I think the other me, the first me whose name sounds like tinkling bells and feels like a cloud, was alone as well. Vague images of a sad overworked woman and a cheerful little boy filled me with an emotion I haven't learned to identify, so I veered my attention away from the subject and on to the task at hand.  
I'm looking for food. Right. Breakfast is what they call food at this time of day, and I hadn't found anything yet. In fact, by now it was almost the time people call food Lunch. Or was it Dinner? Definitely Lunch. I shook my head: it's time to focus.  
I walked past a diner I vaguely remember from another visit, and circle around back to the dumpster and hit a jackpot. A half-eaten burger! As I dug into my meal I continued to try and disentangle jumbled and knotted memories from each other.  
I was born a long time ago, but was captured so people – scientists – could experiment with my abilities.  
A phenomenon, they called me. A miracle. Well if that's how they treat miracles these days, it's no wonder there aren't miracles anymore.  
Years were spent training and laying on a table with straps restraining me so I couldn't escape the jabs of pain – needles. Or at least I think it was years. Time seems to slip by when suspended in ice; frozen, but still able to think, or alone in a small, dark room where insanity was a friend.  
When I realized I was being watched, I'm not quite sure, but somewhere in between bites I became aware of the fine hairs at the back of my neck and on my arms raising as my body warned me that another person was nearby. Acting as if I wasn't aware, I finished my meal and tried to determine whether my observer was harmful or not, and how I would react in either case, but the person didn't do anything other than watch, so I determined that it was dangerous.  
Throwing my trash back into the trash I walked off as if unaware, and, having been listening for it, I spotted the slight sound of shoes meeting the earth, someone's anticipated breathing, and if I tried hard enough, I could imagine that I hear their excited heartbeat as well.  
Definitely dangerous. Taking in this new information I determined the best courses of action, finally settling on eluding the pursuer so that I could spy on them myself, get more information on who the person is. Giving a jerky nod to myself, I abruptly took off in a direction and didn't slow my way-to-fast-to-be-normal pace until I could no longer hear the person's breaths, but still able to detect their footsteps, then made my way to an apartment's fire escape stairs, took a running leap at the ladder and scaled it before quickly pulling it up behind me – erasing all evidence – and proceeded to the top of the building, where I easily spotted my pursuer.  
Jeans, white T-shirt, baseball cap with a Broncos logo on it, – I wouldn't have immediately pegged him as a threat if it weren't for the faint outline of a gun beneath his shirt and the uncontained excitement in his heartbeat, and if I concentrated hard I could faintly detect his mind – all those things that plagued him mentally – amongst the mobs of strangers out.  
So busy concentrating, trying to figure out what he could possibly want from me, I didn't immediately notice the presence behind me, but once I did I jumped up and backed to the edge of the roof.  
"I'll jump." I am aware that this isn't how conversations usually begin, even with my limited people knowledge, but I'm pretty sure in this case casual conversation wasn't needed. And I was right.  
"I wouldn't advise that. A fall like that might hurt." I tried to imagine that the blue eyes were mocking me, but I could easily identify the sincerity in his expression so I took a step away from the edge.  
"What do you want?" It still came out suspicious, but it was definitely less defensive than my last input in this odd exchange.  
"We want to help." My senses perked up at the sound of the fire escape ladder coming down as my pursuer came to us and I was keenly aware that I would soon be outnumbered. I'd have to get this over with soon, if I wanted to keep the odds even. My concern must have shown in my body language – considering I had shifted closer to the edge again – so the large blonde continued quickly.  
"We're aware that you have special abilities and we know a place you can go with people who will help you understand them better." My blood chilled and I was briefly able to identify my emotion as fear before I stepped back quickly off of the roof. Or at least that was my intention.  
A strong hand wrapped around my wrist and held tight as gravity attempted to pull me down in her strong grip, and if I were normal my arm would have ripped out of its socket when my body pulled taut against the blonde man and gravity played tug-of-war with me.  
I shrieked, not out of pain, as I wriggled and clawed at the arm holding me; trying to pull me back to the pain, the insanity, but I refused to go back. Never; not as long as I live.  
"Let go!" I shrieked. He ignored and showed amazing muscle power as he single handedly pulled me back up to the roof, to his companion. Once I got level with his arm, and it became obvious that he wouldn't listen to my plea for death – for release; mercy – I found a new use of my mouth. I took a large chunk of his arm and bit as hard as I possibly could.  
It's said that the jaw is strong enough that you could virtually break all your teeth with enough effort, so it really wasn't a surprise when I felt a warm liquid fill my mouth, the taste of the iron in his blood coating my tongue.  
He was yelling now, and his companion reached down, trying to detach me, and though I tried hard not to let go, the brick of the building digging into my bare arm and scraping off skin surprised me enough that he was able to pry me free, and they succeeded in pulling me up together. I scrambled to get up, to run away from the threat of returning to My Room, but apparently there was a third companion, and I got a brief glance of black leather and red hair before the hilt of a gun came in contact with my head, leaving me unconscious.


	2. Escape

Chapter 2  
Escape  
(Is Always The Same)  
Fight and flight is the natural physical response humans have when faced with stress. Growing up, my original response was hide. I would hide from the monsters that went bump in the night, hide from the jeering fingers and the noses people were always looking down at me from.  
When I was young I had to learn to conquer that response, because I learned the hard way that no one can hide forever, and I gradually trained my skittish mind to stand like a tree and stare my monsters in the face, and if they didn't back down, I'd fight.  
Unfortunately, it turns out you can't fight forever, too, and soon you're forced to run. So for a long time I ran. I ran until I was forced to hide, and soon I only fought when I was ordered to.  
Lately, though, I've been learning to fight once again, and challenge my monsters while standing tall, and as soon as I remember how to do this, I'll never run or hide again.  
...  
I woke up in Heaven. Or at least that's what it felt like, because surely Heaven is the only place where you can sleep on clouds. Once I opened my eyes I saw that I wasn't in fact in Heaven, but a room, and I was laying on the softest bed I had ever laid on before.  
I was tempted to shut my eyes and pretend I hadn't woken up, just so that I wouldn't have to move, but my training kicked in, so I swiftly got out of bed, scoped the room out, tried the knob to make sure it was locked, and checked out of the window to see how high up I was, in case that could be a means of escape. Nope, uh-uh. My stomach did an unfamiliar somersault, and while I made my bed to look like no one had occupied it (struggling not to sink into the mattress), trying to keep my back to the camera in the corner of the room as much as possible, I tried to identify what the unpleasant feeling was, but couldn't find a word for it. All I knew, was that I had never been this high in the air before. Other than planes, but those didn't count because I was usually still shaking off the drugs I'd been injected with, or still unconscious.  
Once the bed was made and I checked again for any possible escape routes, I sat down on the ground at the foot of the bed and stared at the door, waiting for someone to show up and fiddling with the crisp bandages covering the scrapes on my arms to distract myself from the emotion I identified as nervous, but as time ticked on I felt the tickle of another emotion, the one I felt on the roof. Fear.  
Was I back to Them? Had the blonde man brought me back so they could lock me in My Room again, alone for months at a time? Logic tried to break into the fear, reasoning that this wasn't My Room, so it was unlikely I had been brought back to Them.  
Despite the logic, my breathing quickened steadily, and by the time fear had gripped me so hard in its grips that I thought I would pass out, the door opened. I was so relieved that someone had come for me that I forgot to be scared, but I made sure none of those emotions showed, they were carefully contained in my mind.  
The woman had brown hair and was dressed completely in leather, so I wondered briefly if she was the one who had knocked me out on the roof, before remembering the woman on the roof had bright red hair, like a ripe cherry; searing fire.  
We sized each other up for a second, and I wondered if she would speak first, because I sure wouldn't.  
"I'm Agent Hill. Sorry about the harsh treatment, but you were getting out of hand, from what I've been told." In other words, she's not sorry about it. Her face was cold, collected, but I had been trained to read the most passive faces, and I could see her curiosity.  
"What do you want?" I hadn't meant for that to come out; I had been going to make a snarky comment on how people don't like to be abducted, but I guess this would work. She arched a perfect eyebrow.  
"Didn't Rogers tell you? We're here to help you with your abilities." Once again my blood froze, but not the extent I would jump off a roof again – I had already proven to myself that this was not where I was before. For one thing, someone was talking to me, and I didn't wake up strapped to a table with IVs in my arms, and a whole army of needles on a table beside me. I took a deep breath.  
"I don't need your help." She seemed to be expecting this answer.  
"Unfortunately, that's not for you to decide. We're keeping you here not only to help you and keep you safe, but also to keep the people around you safe until we have learned more about your abilities."  
A blur – they're odd things. Few of us have ever seen blurs, but with one word people can envision something they've never seen; understand the concept in their mind without the proof from their eyes. Amazing things, words.  
Well I was a blur, when I jumped up and knocked Agent Hill to the ground, the solid 'thunk' that came from her head told me she was unconscious, and I raced down the hall. As I felt more fear that I wouldn't make it out of here, I was given a pleasant surprise. There was a small map on the wall with clear instructions on how to get out in case of emergencies. I guess this would qualify. Taking a mental picture of the map, I continued racing down the hall until I got to a door labeled stairs, which I took two at a time, cursing my short legs.  
I had expected an alarm to go off as soon as Agent Hill woke up, which she either had or was currently doing so, but none sounded yet and I opened the options to those magic boxes that can teleport voices – Walkie Talkies - that were often used at The Other Place I was held for as well.  
Going over the map in my head I headed to the basement, where the cars are kept, rather than the lobby to prevent any unnecessary scenes.  
Once getting there, opening the door with a large B on it, I slowed my pace, tuning my ears for any possible threats. There were many. Voices of nearly a dozen sounded from my right, talking about the mission they had just returned from.  
Slinking into the shadows, I stuck to the sides of cars, keeping out of the gaps of windows, avoiding sunlight whenever the garage door opened to let a car in or out. All went well, the voices getting to a less threatening distance, until I was slouched in the shadow of a pillar next to the door, waiting for it to open next.  
Just then, I heard the walkie talkie give someone's frantic and alarmed words – Agent Hill – and I withheld one of the many angry words I had learned on the street, in order to keep my position hidden. It was unneeded, though. Once she finished talking the garage door opened, finally, and one of the men's eyes snapped in my direction at the noise, immediately locking gaze with my own. Time to run.  
I bolted out of the garage door, barely avoiding being run over by the car being let into the garage in my haste to leave, voices yelling behind me. I like to think I put up a good chase, but I was in unfamiliar territory, and there was concrete surrounding the many garage doors for the hundreds of cars going in and out, and a long bridge that led to grass and few trees, so there wasn't much of a chase.  
At first I tried to fool myself – darting past cars, hopping out of the path of other cars, but I was only halfway to the endless expanse of grass and few trees when the others had made it out of the garage, and I knew a lost fight when I saw one, so a sensible me – the old me, Asset, or the original me – would have turned around and surrendered, turning myself in for a harsh punishment before being locked up again. This me, though, was a little more reckless, and so I continued on. This me – No One – had experienced too much freedom again, tasting what the original me had taken for granted, and no way was I going to go back to captivity without giving my all to get away.  
The grass was so close, so close I could almost feel the cool plants under me, when I felt someone behind me. I glanced back just as someone's hand took firm grasp of my upper arm, causing me to stumble, but my training caught up to me, as it always does.  
Using momentum, I brought us both to the ground, easily getting on top and punching his face as hard as I could in quick succession, needing to knock him out so I could start running again before the others caught up. Only he wasn't passing out like he should have been. In my shock he switched our positions, him getting the upper hand and pinning my arms to my sides, but I was familiar with this move, fighting larger boys on the street, and did the worst a woman could do to a male.  
His face went white with pain, but he kept hold of me, so I went to kick him again. Seeing my move he adjusted so that he could keep me down and avoid my kicks, but that was all I needed. I broke free of his grip, turning in a circle for momentum and kicked him in the chest quickly to knock him off balance, the momentum making up for the weight he had on me, but he recovered quickly and stood up, so we were facing each other.  
Then I caught a glimpse of red hair and black leather sneak behind me, and wasn't surprised this time when there was pain in the back of my head and I lost consciousness once again.


	3. Conversations

Chapter 3  
Conversations  
(And Explanations)  
Even before I lost my people skills I was never good with people. I was always antisocial, afraid of the looks of disdain others would give me and my family, fearing the harsh words that always followed. Few people wanted to be friends with the girl with no father and an overworked mother, so I only ever had one or two friends, before I didn't have them either.  
Conversation always came from my family, or the small pitying assurances people would give me on the streets with a few coins, or at church where the people were only looking to satisfy God with their sympathetic words, not me.  
All in all, having lost the few people skills I'd had, it's no wonder I'm always alone.  
...  
I woke up once again on the soft mattress in the room without an escape, but this time I didn't mistake it for Heaven. When I woke up there was already someone in the room, so I assessed the situation before opening my eyes. Opening my eyes a fraction of an inch, I peered under my eyelids and took in my surroundings: two males, one female, and judging by their breathing they were getting bored, so they had already been waiting for some time, but not too long because they weren't getting restless yet. But if that were the case, it would most likely mean –  
"I know you're awake," said a deep voice.  
It means that they knew I was going to wake up soon. It was then I became aware of the bandage on my elbow where an IV would normally be inserted  
They drugged me!  
My eyes flew open and I attempted to spring out of the bed, but someone's hands grabbed my shoulders and kept me in place. Recognizing the blonde who had helped capture me both times, I stopped struggling.  
"Who are you?" I think this is the best conversation I've started so far, directing my question to all three of them.  
"Ah, yes, with your escape attempt we didn't really have time for introductions. I'm Nickolas Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., this is Agent Romanoff, and Steve Rogers." I eyed the girl who was guilty of knocking me unconscious two times now; I'd have to keep a closer eye on her. When the blonde man let go of me and took a few steps back I felt myself relax – though I made sure they didn't see it – before pushing myself up on the bed so I was now sitting.  
"Now why don't you tell us who you are." It wasn't a request, simply a kind order, and I weighed my options. He was clearly a no nonsense type, so any attempts at lying would likely go South, and he'd already proven many times over that this isn't the place I was kept Before, but even with these reassurances, no one up and tells someone their life story right off the bat.  
"I'm No One," I finally settled with. Instead of taking me literally, as many were prone to doing, he gave me a long look that I returned equally, for the first time not eyeing the dangerous woman and strong man standing still in the corner, listening to us.  
"You say this like it's your name."  
"Not my name," was my automatic correction. "It's my title; a description. I don't have a name." I held back the urge to ramble, trying to make him understand with my limited communication skills, but was grateful that he seemed to understand.  
"I see. Were you ever given a name, or did you throw it away?" The red head – Agent Romanoff – twitched a bit at this, the only thing showing her interest. My eyes lingered on her, wondering if she had done the very thing mentioned, before nodding slightly in response.  
"I had a name a long time ago, but I forgot it." This is the difficult part, where the questions were going to pour and I wouldn't know what to answer to keep myself safe: if he knew the truth would he want to experiment on me as well? Or was it true that they help people here?  
The Director gave me a long look before something clicked in his single eye.  
"That's enough for the interrogation on such personal matters. Now we need to get to the matter at hand: your ability. What is it?" I was so startled by the random change of topic to a less invasive topic that I answered by instinct, pretending I didn't see Agent Romanoff turn a recorder on behind her back.  
"I heal." Many a person has gotten annoyed to the point of violence by my short answers, but there really wasn't any more needed to be said for his question.  
"Care to elaborate on that?" This answer was more complicated, though, and I struggled to form the needed words in my head, trying to organize them in sentences that would make sense. As I struggled with this problem, I found myself with another problem: how elaborate did he want me to get?  
"I heal," I repeated before scrunching my brows, all of my carefully prepared words scattering like startled birds in my head, so I shook it. Opening my mouth to try and scavenge what I could of my fleeting thoughts, I hesitated a few times before giving up, settling on another form of explanation instead.  
"Let me show you." Standing up, I approached the man that towered over me, with the sincere blue eyes and blonde hair. At first he took on a slightly defensive stance, but I assumed The Director gave him a look from behind my back, as he just as quickly relaxed back into a neutral position.  
Approaching his arm, the one further from Agent Romanoff, I motioned toward the bandage on his lower arm, and he unwrapped it both cautiously and curiously at the same time, revealing the bite mark I had left on him from our first skirmish.  
Although the wound had already healed a lot more than I had expected, our most recent skirmish seemed to have made the healing wound stop in its progress, leaving the remaining deep marks left by my pearly whites with a heavy scab trying to cover the damage. Taking a breath, I took his arm in mine, covering the wound with one of my hands while supporting his arm with my other.  
The silence was deafening, all attention focused on me and the hand on his wound, and as I felt the pain of his wound transferred to my own arm, I pretended I didn't see Agent Romanoff's hand twitching for her concealed gun, in the case I became a threat.  
With one last twinge of pain I removed my hands from him, leaving them in awe of the flawless skin where my bite mark had just been, the skin trying to lie to us with its lack of scar saying that the injury had never even been there.  
I gripped my own arm in pain, feeling for myself how strong a jaw could be, and my move didn't go unnoticed by the three in the room, showing their familiarity with the expression of pain.  
"There's a setback," I explained, rubbing my arm in an attempt to make the pain leave quicker. "When I heal another's pain, their pain becomes my own." A burst a pride welled up in my chest: that was one of the better contributions I'd had in a conversation in a long time. My conversation skills were improving. I slid a look at the blonde before lowering my gaze.  
"I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm just…I thought you were someone else." His penetrating gaze stayed on me for a moment before one end of his lips was tugged up, following a raising eyebrow, to form a smirk.  
"I'm fine now. Just make sure not to do it again, or it might get annoying."  
And with that I determined that Steve Rogers was definitely a good guy, not a bad guy.  
The three left the room, The Director telling me to get rest, and that he would be back tomorrow to continue our conversation, and I felt my body agree as deep exhaustion settled in my bones, even though it was still only early noon, and I was drawn back to the cloud mattress and into the land of dreams.  
Only my land of dreams was filled with nightmares.


	4. Nightmares

Chapter 4  
Nightmares  
(Aren't Always In Your Head)  
All across the world, in different nationalities, situations, and languages, the meaning of happiness is changed; slightly altered in small ways that make a world of difference from another meaning. Some refer to happiness as a state of luck and prosperity; others refer to it simply as satisfaction. This is the basis of all definitions of happy: either an outside force, or an emotional state causing happiness.  
I've never had either luck or satisfaction, so I guess that means I've never been happy.  
Contrary to what most believe, that doesn’t mean I’m always sad, either.  
...  
Rarely do I ever dream – conjuring up impossible things while asleep. When I sleep I remember - recalling the time I was young, or the time as an Asset, but these memories can hardly be called dreams; my memories are nightmares.  
Vague imagines of a woman's weary face, snippets of conversations I don't remember; a little boy who tugged at my heart, gasping breaths as he fought to stay alive; the slaps of an angry man and the confined space of the mills.  
I knew that these memories came from the original me, as they had a sense of surrealism; having happened so long ago I wouldn't be sure if they were figments of my imagination if they didn't have such vivid detail.  
From my time as Asset come far more disturbing memories, the ones that make my heart pound and could sweat stick to my sleeping body.  
Memories of the pain of experiments filled my mind, wishing they would give me anesthesia, or at least knock me unconscious as my body's threshold for pain raised and it would take me longer and longer to finally submit to unconsciousness. The experiments went from physical – what were my limits, and how far past them could I get before I broke? So many vials of blood were taken from me in my time there, sometimes I couldn't stand afterward for blood loss, and that was their favorite time to test my physical boundaries: when I was weakened.  
Dozens of surgeries were done, trying to find what was different from me than from the rest of the world, but nothing could be found but a very slight abnormality with my blood that they deemed not useful in their searches; and hours – so many hours – determining the properties of my healing.  
Was there an extent to the severity of the wounds I could heal? How much could I heal in one go? Could I heal myself or just others? And what always baffled them: why do I feel the ghost of other's pain after I heal them?  
From each of their endless questions that they managed to answer came a whole slew of other questions, and with more questions came more experiments.  
Worse than the memories of experiments, though, were the memories of isolation. I was captured when I was young – too young. At only fifteen I wasn't as developed as I could be with my ability, so I was kept in a small dark room without any lights other than what came in through the grubby window on the door, a bucket, and a small cot in the corner to sleep on. Three times a day food would be pushed through a small slot on the bottom of the door, and that was the only interaction with the outside world I would have aside from the experiments that left me closer to dead each time, and the training that would make my muscles shake for days after.  
More time than I like to think was spent in that room, sometimes without being taken out for weeks at a time, and soon not even my own voice would fill the empty void of silence. The first time they left me in there alone for weeks I went insane, and they hadn't factored that into the equation.  
I was useless to them in that state, so they took a risk that would either leave me useless, or make it possible for me to be useful again.  
They injected me with something. Something that made the haze of insanity leave so I could grasp just how sever the pain was. It was unlike anything I had experienced, dwarfing the surgeries without anesthesia and I just wouldn't pass out, and the time when they had me try to heal a man stabbed in the heart. It almost dwarfed the pain of reliving memories of who I used to be in the weeks of uninterrupted silence.  
An eternity was spent like that – alternating between thrashing against my bonds in pain, and laying still as my body spasmed, wishing I would just die. Before long the scientists called me a lost cause, leaving me to die. Only I didn't.  
When I woke up again, it was to a power I had never felt before. Strength I had never felt was contained in my muscles, my senses heightened to the point it was unbearable until I slowly adjusted, and a mental clarity keeping the insanity at bay for just so long that I could attempt to escape, and I did attempt.  
I was so close; so close to being free, if only just from this life. I had felt the chill of the cold air, the sting of the snow on my bare feet as I ran from my prison. But even with my new strength I couldn't outrun their cars, which were a lot faster than the ones I remembered, and odd flying contraptions that looked oddly alike, yet nothing alike, the helicopters I occasionally saw in the paper, and with it they shot a net, a net that caught me and I couldn't escape, and with the impending threat of being returned to My Room, hysteria gripped me once again.  
I had heard of the chair, the chair that takes your memories so they can turn you into who they want you to be, but rarely was it ever used for anyone other than Winter Soldier, because the only way to ensure your safety was to wipe you right after being awoken from cryofreeze, and the only way to ensure survival of cryofreeze was the serum he had been injected with, so when they brought me to the chair and hooked me up, I couldn't believe what was happening.  
Through the haze settled over my mind I heard the conversations of the scientists: Low chance that my brain would be intact after the process and increased pain from the lack of time in cryofreeze, how if this failed I'd be useless to them either way, so they took the risk.  
As they put a jaw guard in my mouth, their conversations continued. Warnings to only take as much as they absolutely had to, to reduce the risk of possibly altering my ability in any way.  
The pain of the chair was similar to when I had been forced to heal a burn covering half of a man's body, only this was directed at my brain.  
Before long, I forgot the screams were mine, and after completing the long, painful process, I was frozen for the first time.  
It became a process, then. I would be woken from cryofreeze, the training and experiments would continue, as with the aging in My Room until I finally lost my sanity, then the chair, and finally the freeze.  
The freeze was always my favorite part, because although it was terrible, agonizing, and endless, I had already associated freedom with the cold air chilling every inch of my body, the sting of snow on my bare feet from my escape attempt so long ago, and during my time frozen I could pretend I was free.


	5. A SHIELD Can Be a Dangerous Thing

Chapter 5  
A S.H.I.E.L.D. Can Be a Dangerous Thing  
(Because They Make You Feel Safe)  
My mother explained to me once that a shield can be a dangerous thing, and that's why they aren't used in war anymore. I knew, in the back of my head, that this was probably one of her stories and that she didn't have any education to back her claims, but sometimes a story is fine, and so I listened.  
I learned many years later that she was right, because in a way I was I shield.  
I had a little brother, Tom, I think he was called – his name, not his title – and I was his shield; from hunger, sadness, pain, and eventually our Uncle.  
A shield is a dangerous thing, because while your shield is taking all of the abuse, protecting you from the things that would hurt you, you become careless, and forget how to take care of yourself, so when you find yourself without a shield, you're completely defenseless.  
My mother wasn't telling a story at all.  
...  
Unlike the other times I had previously woken up in this room – sliding effortlessly out of my dreams – I woke up this time with a sense of alarm; the feeling I was familiar with in waking up in My Room, whenever my brain had recognized the small signs that someone was coming my way before I had even registered it, so immediately I rolled out of the bed and landed on the ground in a slouch, scoping for objects that could serve as a weapon. Settling on the nightlight on the desk next to the cloud bed, I slowly, silently, made my way to the door, positioning myself slightly behind it so I would see anyone who came in before they saw me, and then I waited to see if my instincts were correct in that someone was on their way, and as usual, they were.  
I had only been in the position for little over a minute before I heard sounds in the hall, which turned to a quiet click as someone unlocked the door. As the person took a step into the room I lowered the lamp slightly; I knew him. His eyes scanned to the room for me briefly, but snapped onto me when I took a step away from the door. He was the person who was with Steve Rogers when they got me the first time.  
"I've been directed to move you to a different room." I appreciated his lack of small talk, as that was really a weak point of mine, but my appreciation did nothing to subside the shiver that went down my spine when I met his eyes: his eyes were evil.  
Aside from being a normal shade of brown, his eyes held a certain character of evil that I recognized from my time There, but I was confused. He was with Steve Rogers, and Steve Rogers is good, so this man must be good too, right? I tentatively followed him out into the hall.  
Now that I wasn't occupied with a plan of escape, I had more time to process the area. It was a long hall, extending far to the left, but ending on the right to a large window which showed that it was well past dark.  
Something was wrong. If The Director was relocating me, surely he could have waited until tomorrow, as it was him in the first place who told me to get rest. And why send this man instead of someone I had already been introduced to? The pieces didn't add up.  
"Who are you?" I asked him tentatively. His eyes slid over to me.  
"Agent Rumlow. We met before." I nodded, showing that I remembered him.  
"Why would The Director send you to get me?" There was a shift in his eyes, telling me he wasn't going to tell the truth, and the unease in me grew.  
"Fury? He's not available right now." My heart stopped as I spotted an error in his explanation that he hadn't seemed to catch: if The Director's not available, who told him to move me?  
He didn't notice his error until we had reached the stairs that I had used before to escape, his realization showing in the catch in his breath. He slid another look my way, his evil eyes trying in vain to conceal his panic, but I caught it. Coiling my legs to run, I jumped a fraction of an inch when the static voice of a walkie talkie came from past the stair door.  
'Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. We need EMT's.'  
'Do we have a 20 on the shooter?'  
'Rogers is in pursuit.'  
Ambush.  
Agent Rumlow cursed before swinging at me, but I dodged and took off down the hall. I heard the stair doors slam open as half a dozen men in dark suits came out, all taking off after me, but the serum surged in my veins, and I reached the room I had been staying in long before any of them did, kicking the door open before dragging my bed in front of it to gain time, and raced to the window without hesitation.  
I stopped in front of it, feeling it with the tips of my fingers, assessing once again how long it was down to the water below and ignored the fluttery feeling I got in my stomach again.  
It was bulletproof, and considering where I was being kept it really wasn't a surprise, but I was created to be stronger than bulletproof glass, and I'd certainly gotten through it before. Grabbing the chair quickly as the footsteps stopped right outside my door and shoved against it, budging the door more than I hoped they would be able to, I charged at the window with the chair in front of me, putting all of my strength into breaking the strong glass, and I did right as Agent Rumlow made it through the door, our eyes locking briefly before I fell into the darkness of night.  
Unlike when I attempted to jump off of the tall apartment building the first time I was caught, I knew for certain I wouldn't die this time – though I guess that depended largely on how deep the water is that I'm set to land in – and during the few moments before impact I resolved my new mission: find The Director. Having assumed that Foxtrot was The Director's alias by the urgency in the woman's voice when she spoke through the walkie talkie, I continued my assumption that Rogers was Steve Rogers, and since Steve Rogers was with The Director, my manhunt had been brought to two.  
The impact with the water was cold, but having been frozen many times before, I was able to brush it off, simply thankful that the water was deep enough and when I did meet up with the bottom it was slow enough that I was able to propel myself from it back to the top.  
I figured the actual finding of The Director or Steve Rogers would be the difficult part, but it turned out to be rather easy, as I ran into a familiar red head along the way.  
I was dripping wet when I made it out of the water, but that didn't slow me as I took off at a jog, searching for someone I knew – though few – so I could ask where one of the two I was searching for were, and though the odds were unlikely, I almost immediately spotted a nearly frantic Agent Romanoff.  
"Agent Romanoff!" I called, succeeding in getting her attention. She seemed to struggle with what to address me as when I reached her.  
"You," she finally settled with. "What are you doing?"  
"I need to find the Director, or Steve Rogers. It's urgent." Her face fell slightly, and I understood on some level that bringing up their names had upset her, but the emotion she was feeling stopped her from asking unwanted questions, so she just motioned for me to follow her as she jumped into a car, speeding off into the night. She was definitely going faster than the cars around us.  
The next time we stopped it was in front of a building I recognized as a hospital and she had hardly stopped the car in front of the building occupying many police cars – not in a parking space, so I wondered briefly if that would be a problem – before she had jumped out and begun racing into the building, me at her heels.  
I knew from the snippet given by the walkie talkie that The Director had been injured, but seeing him in the operation room with bullet holes in his chest brought unfamiliar emotions into my own, though one of the more identifiable emotions was hardly a good one, being guilt, because I had done that to people before. On missions I was primarily the healer, but sometimes I was needed for things other than healing on those missions, or I'd be sent on my own assassination missions when the others were otherwise occupied – Winter Soldier in cryofreeze and the more recent super soldiers gone tearing down a country, or something, and I had ended many lives, many in the same fashion.  
When the defibrillator was brought out and Agent Romanoff began muttering to herself I looked down. He's not going to make it; that's not how life works. In a few moments my thoughts became reality as there was a deathly silence, followed by a third woman walking out of the room, and I knew The Director hadn't made it. Steve didn't say anything, though, so I suspected he knew as well. I glanced up at him to see if I was correct, but frowned slightly to see him gazing down at something clasped in his hands.  
Feeling my gaze, he turned his head to me and clenched his fist over the small object, but didn't say anything as we followed Agent Romanoff out of the room.  
We sat in silence as we waited for The Director's body to be presentable, and once it was I left distance between me and the others to give them a hint of privacy; I didn't know The Director long enough to be welcome there, or to mourn his passing, and to be frank emotional encounters make me uncomfortable.  
Gazing from afar I witnessed Agent Romanoff's farewell, the sheet pulled over The Director's head, and as the other agent – Agent Hill – took The Director's body. Once that ordeal was over I prepared to leave my corner and tell Steve Rogers what had happened – how I had nearly been taken by people he thought worked with him, but before I could he was approached by Agent Romanoff, who began interrogating him on why The Director had been with him before he died, before the two were approached by another person. Though I tried, I couldn't see his face past a machine – a candy machine – and the person restocking it, telling Steve Rogers he was needed elsewhere. Once the person and Agent Romanoff had left I took a step forward once again but stopped when I witnessed the most peculiar thing: Steve Rogers, the good guy, broke into the machine and put something in once the man finished restocking it, rather than taking things out as would be expected, and quickly took off down the hallway after the other agent.  
By the time I made it to the hall he was gone, and rather than chase after him I peered into the machine, spotting what was undoubtedly the thing he had been grasping in his hand earlier.  
So instead of chasing after him I returned to my corner and waited for him to return, because when people hide things it's usually with the intent to come back for it.  
Only someone else got to it first.


	6. A Stop at the Mall

Chapter 6  
A Stop at the Mall  
(Was Never My Thing)  
I was born at the end of the Great Depression and the Beginning of World War Two. My family was dirt poor for as much of my childhood as I remember – just because the Great Depression was over it doesn't mean everyone instantly had money.  
During the Great Depression my family dug through garbage for food and took clothes off of laundry strings, after the Great Depression we begged for food and went to hole-in-the-wall second- hand clothes stores (though only on rare occasions did one find anything as good as third-hand clothes), and if possible, things still managed to get worse when my father died in the war, taking with him any possible source of decent income.  
Taking all of this into consideration, it's understandable that my limited experience shopping consist of stops at the market whenever my mother had raised enough money in the mills that we could get fresh fruit, and the occasional visit to said second-hand clothes stores, and it seemed that lesson stayed with me even after all this time, as I still only visit any sort of stores as little as I could get away with.  
Then again, it could just be that I hate crowded places.  
...  
It's funny, though still rather odd, how first impressions work. With just one look at a person your whole mindset towards them is set, and if it's a good mindset you're more likely to have a good attitude toward that person, and if it's a bad impression you're more likely to bolt when the person gives you a bad look.  
Perhaps that's why I didn't say anything to Agent Romanoff when she took the object from the vending machine, and perhaps that's also why I didn't bolt out of the hospital – after hours of waiting for Steve Rogers – when he finally showed up and attacked Agent Romanoff when she hinted that she had the small object he had hidden.  
Initially, I had been surprised when the poorly disguised Steve Rogers shoved her through the door after having a heart attack in front of the machine, but then I figured that if he had felt the need to disguise himself in the first place, it probably meant he had been attacked. Hence, he was in a low-trust mood.  
Upon getting to the open door and hearing the angry voices inside, I decided against going inside and crashing the party in favor of leaning against the wall and listening in on their conversation.  
"Why should I tell you?"  
"Fury gave it to you. Why." That peaked my interest. Had The Director given the small object to Steve Rogers? Is that why he had hidden it? I frowned slightly. It must mean that he was already aware of the issues going on at S.H.I.E.L.D.  
"What's on it?"  
"I don't know."  
"Stop lying," he said with poison.  
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers." She tried to come across as innocent, and I wondered why she even tried. Seeing this conversation going nowhere fast, I delved into my own mind for a second, keeping an ear out for anything interesting said between the two.  
The most pressing matter in my head at the moment, though, was why everyone kept calling Steve Rogers different things. Steve, Rogers, rarely ever Steve Rogers. The same went for the Director: Nickolas Fury, Nick, Fury, even Foxtrot. While I understood that Foxtrot was an alias to throw off people who aren't supposed to hear certain information, I wasn't sure about the other names.  
Numerous theories on the many different names people have for one another whirled through my mind, being tossed away just as quickly as they came until I was ready to explode, until something, or rather someone mentioned by the arguing couple brought me back to the land of the living.  
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, but those who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years." My blood froze as that struck home. Winter Soldier was out of cryofreeze again, and he had killed The Director. That means something big is going to happen, and from the looks of things it's going to happen soon.  
In my shock I realized I had just missed some of their conversation, but didn't mind nearly much as I should have.  
"Like you said, he's a ghost story." Know that they were still talking about the Winter Soldier I took a breath, held it, and walked into the room. Agent Romanoff's eyes snapped toward me, and seeing her attention shift Steve Rogers – or is it Rogers? Steve? – shoved something into his pocket – Three guesses on what that was – and turned to me quickly as well. Before either could say something, though Agent Romanoff's mouth had already opened to cover what she thought was running through my mind, I cut them both off.  
"I know the Winter Soldier." Perhaps that's not the best way to tell potentially dangerous people that I, a person they had only just met today, knew their enemy, but I'm sure I've already made it clear by now how bad I am at communicating.  
While they both took defensive stances I mentally cursed and quickly tried to think of a way to back track without seeming any more suspicious than I already did seem.  
"Or rather, I know the people who are in charge of him. They experimented on me for a long time." Their defensive stances relaxed to some degree, but not nearly as much as I had hoped.  
"I can help you."  
This seemed to get them out of their heads, so Steve Rogers lowered his fists, though his frown grew considerably.  
"Why would you want to?" It was my turn to frown, though I'm sure it was more of a glare, as I twitched at the phantom pain in my arm as the pain from when I had healed him finally faded to nothing. The small feeling brought to mind all of the pain I had been forced to endure, and I knew from the screams I heard from My Room that Winter Soldier had been forced to endure pain as well.  
"I want to make them pay for everything they've done ten times over." The dark look on my face must've driven the point across, as they shared a brief look before nodding.  
"Let's go." I didn't argue and just followed behind as they took off down the hall.  
My quest for revenge had begun.  
Even though both of my companions were very ready to figure out what was on the small object – a flash drive, Agent Romanoff told me – I quickly pointed out Steve Roger's horrible disguise as well as mine and Agent Romanoff's lack of one altogether, so before all else we made a quick stop at one of the second-hand clothes stores I've found myself in before on a few occasions.  
We grabbed our respective clothes – I was surprised to see a rather nice selection this time around – though Steve Rogers wasn't at all thrilled with the shoes he got, as they were the only in his size. Agent Romanoff seemed to find this rather funny, if the little smirk on her face was anything to go by.  
When Steve Rogers – who had told me that I could call him Steve, Like Agent Romanoff does – looked forlornly at the cashier as we took off I poked his massive arm to get his attention.  
"The owner and I have an agreement." He understood, but the look on his face asked me to elaborate, so I did.  
"He owes me a few favors, so he lets me take what I need." Though he still didn't look comfortable 'stealing' the clothes despite my reassurances, he didn't look guilty anymore, and that's improvement, I guess. He gave me an odd look that was more of a stare and I returned it in full.  
"Once this is done and we're not in immediate danger, we need to talk," he said. I knew this would be coming sooner or later, even without him confirming it, so I nodded.  
After that came the job of staying out of sight of any and all cameras which would be looking for Steve, and I once again found myself being helpful. Twice in a day is a new record, and I couldn't help but feel proud. Perhaps being around other people isn't so bad.  
I led them through all of the many run down, gross, smelly allies I was familiar with. Staying off of the radar had been a familiar thing for me for a very long time, and since my escape from the facility the habits drilled into me hadn't let up at all, so I was rather confident that we would have been safe from unwanted eyes even without the disguises. At least until we got to our destination.  
The public and I have never quite seen eye to eye. They like bright colors and conspicuous everything and I like none of the above. They like crowds to call friends and I prefer to be alone, and these are only a couple of the many things that is different from me and others, so the general public and I have never really spent much time together. And so, when the two walked right into the heart of the mall as if they owned the place, not gaining an extra glance from any horrifyingly dressed teenagers, I couldn't help but be a little envious – is that what this emotion is? – as I trailed awkwardly behind, fighting not to drown in the crowd, and somehow managed to attract much more attention then I'd ever had in my life.  
Whenever I'm in crowds, also, there's an incessant buzz of other's mental stress; their mental turmoil, begging for me to ease them, heal them to the best of my ability, and the longer we were in their, the louder and more painful the buzz became, until it was a full on headache. Especially since the major population in the mall are teenagers: teenagers have so many mental pains because they blow everything out of proportion, making everything seem so much bigger than it actually is, so I usually find myself avoiding them especially.  
All in all, I was relieved when they finally walked into a store, and immediately withdrew into a corner where I was relatively alone, aside from the random customer who turned right around at the sight of me glaring from between two TV monitors, and I made sure I could see both the door and hear the conversation going on between the two who had brought me to this torture.  
When the countdown of nine minutes began, the swells of anticipation rolling off of Steve were similar to mine, except his was anticipation of a fight. Mine was anticipation of a fight mingled with fear of being captured, and returned to the pain and insanity, and I nearly darted over to them and knocked the long haired blonde out when he began to scrutinize Steve too closely, then could have sworn I felt myself melting with relief when he simply commented on the glasses I had pushed onto Steve, completing his look.  
After that fright I wandered closer to the two, determined not to get caught off guard again, and upon getting to the computer they had been at my heart stopped once again. They were gone. Rushing out of the store, though making sure not to bring any more attention to myself than I would get otherwise, I was relieved to see them walking toward a moving stair thing, being tailed by two people who were obviously agents, and as they passed the two I heard Agent Romanoff's command to laugh at something she said – though she didn't actually say anything funny, so I wondered slightly on how that worked – nodding slightly to myself: disguise doesn't only cover looks. They've got to act like civilians as well (though the laugh Steve gave sounded more like a choking hyena than anything else).  
Upon reaching the stairs moments after they did I received another shock as I witnessed the two join lips, but their previous actions toward each other didn't portray romance, so I quickly lowered my head and scanned for threats, immediately spotting the familiar face of Agent Rumlow. I ducked my head further, so the visor on my cap was covering my face, turning so my back was to him and it looked like I was simply gazing down at all of the identical shops below us, while I was actually keeping an eye on the two ahead of me so I knew which direction they took off in.  
After those two encounters getting out of the mall was a breeze, only having to duck my head down or avert my gaze a few more times, but the Agents weren't looking for me; no one knew that I was traveling with the two yet.  
I was finally able to catch up to them as Steve finished hot wiring a car, and I hopped into the back before they could forget me again, immediately sagging into the chair and letting out the stress from the first time I was captured until now in general and trying to persuade my headache to fade. Today had been a very long day so far, but I was getting the unpleasant feeling that this next part of the day would be even longer. More particularly this car drive.  
Once we had gotten out of the city the tense silence that always accompanies people when they face capture by enemies left us, and before I knew it conversations were going on once again.  
"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?" I blinked. What? Last I checked Captain America was dead. I frowned slightly; maybe it was an alias, like Foxtrot. Definitely.  
"Nazi Germany, and we're not stealing, we're borrowing. Take your feet of the dash." I was so confused by this point that I hardly saw the irony of Steve telling Agent Romanoff off like a child when they were near the same age. Nazi Germany? Captain America? Were they using code words to communicate something they don't want me to know?  
"Okay here's a question, which you don't have to answer." I waited for this question, hoping it would clear up some of my own, but she wasn't done rambling. "Though I feel like if you don't answer you're kind of answering."  
"What is it?"  
"Was that your first kiss since '45?" Caught off guard by the informality – and awkwardness – of that question (are they not aware that I'm in the car with them?) I almost didn't see the significance of that question. As they continued their informal and awkward conversation my heart stopped and my brain whirred as I tried to figure out what in the world was going on.  
I wracked my brain for what little I knew of Captain America, coming up with odd little tidbits, but nothing substantial enough for me to compare with the blonde man sitting in the front seat.  
The name was familiar to everyone in my time; the man in comic books, fighting to save lives, and then losing his own in the process. Of course, after the original's death more men dressed in star spangled costumes appeared to instill hope in the hearts of the hopeless, but none were quite the same as the first (as in not nearly as muscular or sincere; honest), and eventually, after the war ended, the men in costumes were seen less and less frequently.  
Then again, I wouldn't know too much; he died when I was young – 7 years old – and I was too preoccupied afterward to look too much into it, or to read any of the comics about him. The U.S. was still recovering from the Great Depression, and the aftermath of World War Two, and I never had time to waste, like the other kids I knew.  
And then I remembered something. The memory jumped to the front of my mind without my even being aware of it, until I was examining the front page of a comic book portraying a man in a US flag suit with giant muscles, a shield, and honest blue eyes.  
For probably the twelfth time today my heart stopped – that can't be healthy – as it finally hit me.  
"You're Captain America," I breathed. I hadn't expected either of them to hear me, but never underestimate super soldier and spy hearing.  
"You didn't know?" came Steve's slightly cautious voice. I shook my head, my eyes locked onto him, still comparing everything with him and the comic book cover that I hardly remembered.  
"Where have you been? We've been advertised everywhere since New York." I could see her well-hidden disgust at this fact, and I figured she didn't particularly like being advertised everywhere; it's like waving a flag at your enemies saying "I'm right here!"  
I felt I could sympathize, but I had more pressing matters on hand, currently, to try and focus on anything else.  
"What happened in New York?" The silence was deafening, and I wished they would just give me answers already. I hate feeling confused; it's a gross emotion. Agent Romanoff slowly turned around to face me and Steve readjusted the front mirror so he could give me a look as well.  
"Where have you been?" Agent Romanoff asked me again, this time expecting an answer.  
"I've been homeless for a few years," I explained briefly, hoping to get back to my own original question.  
"You're Captain America?" I aimed my question at the front mirror where I met eyes with Steve whenever he could look up from the road. He nodded. "But you died." He didn't answer for a few moments.  
"When I crashed into the ocean, the ice preserved me and S.H.I.E.L.D. found and defrosted me a few years ago." The ice preserved him, just like ice had been preserving me.  
Whereas I hadn't wanted to tell anyone anything about me just minutes before, my story was itching in my throat now, and before I could force my training to drag the words back where they belong they burst out of me.  
"Ice preserved me too." I knew this would need elaboration, and for the first time in a long time I didn't think before talking, to make sure everything came out right, and once again the words burst out of my mouth without consent. "I was born in 1938."  
The car swerved and I had to grab the door to keep from falling into the next seat.


	7. Shall We Play a Game?

Chapter 7  
Shall We Play a Game  
(Of Death?)  
I remember the first few times I was put into My Room. Back then my emotions and social skills were still close enough to normal, so not all of the emotions I felt at the time are familiar to me anymore, so all I really know is that I was scared and confused, but mostly just scared.  
I'd pound and scream on the door, begging to be let out. Eventually I gave up on being let out – I had mixed feelings on being let out either way: I didn't want to be alone anymore, but whenever I was let out it was by people who didn't talk to me but experimented on me – instead I begged that someone would talk to me, touch me without hurting me. Eventually, I stopped wishing for those things, and as the memories of who I used to be faded until they stopped plaguing my every thought, I continually forgot the things that are considered normal. Soon I began to beg the darkness to go away, I begged the silence to disappear, but mostly, I begged that I would just stop existing with them.  
...  
In hindsight, perhaps dropping a metamorphic bomb on the driver while driving rather fast wasn't the greatest idea of my life – and that's saying a lot – and the drivers around us seemed to think the same if their honks were anything to go by. It's not my fault, though: I was word vomiting.  
As soon as our lives weren't in danger of the bombs on wheels people call cars, one of which we were sitting in, and we were driving smoothly again, Steve's piercing – and rather accusing – eyes shot up to the mirror again to look at me.  
"Explain." So the word vomit continued.  
"I was born in 1938," I repeated. That was the only easy part in this explanation, so as words continued spewing out of my mouth I wondered briefly how this would turn out, finally just setting myself to get through to the end. "I think I had a mom and a little brother, but she died, and he died, and then I went to live with my Uncle, who killed by little brother…" I trailed off, trying to organize both my thoughts and memories at the same time, because I'm pretty sure I had just mentioned two different times my mostly-forgotten brother had died, an it's not possible he died twice. I finally determined which was correct, going back to correct myself. "Never mind, scratch that. After my mom died we were both sent to my uncle, who killed my brother, and then I…" what did I do then? "I think I ran away, and then was found by Them, who experimented with my powers and gave me a serum, which I think was like the one you and Winter Soldier have, only a lot weaker since it was only the beginning stages of Howard Stark's experiments with it, then they aged me in My Room and froze me, only one time when I was frozen something happened and I wasn't frozen anymore, but none of the scientists were there and so I ran away, and I've been living on the street ever since Agent Romanoff knocked me out and you guys took me to S.H.I.E.L.D." Did that make sense? I think that made sense.  
I had been talking rather fast, but was hardly surprised that the two of them had kept up with my jumbled word vomit explanation, even if I wasn't quite sure it had made total sense.  
"Wait, wait, wait. You were injected with a serum?"  
"The Winter Soldier was injected with a serum?"  
I wasn't sure who asked what, so just opted to answer both questions.  
"Yes." That answered both questions. Simple. There was another jumble of questions, but this time I wasn't able to make any of them out, so I stayed silent as they regained their composure. Steve was the first to address me again.  
"You said Howard Stark created the serum you were given?" I nodded.  
"He used a vial of your blood after you died to help him rediscover the ingredients." A dark look came over Steve's face.  
"If they know how to make the serum, why haven't we seen any more super soldiers?" This question was easy, it's the only thing the scientists ever seemed to talk about while I was in their company.  
"Aside from what they managed to take from Mr. Stark on a few occasions, they haven't been able to recreate it. They are closer, of course, but they only know what makes up the actual serum. From what I understand there are a lot of outside components that they haven't been able to figure out." I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he processed this new information.  
"And the Winter Soldier?" It was Agent Romanoff now, and I remembered briefly her explanation to Steve in the hospital about being shot through by him.  
"He was given his dose of the serum long before I was given mine, and the secrets to that batch were lost when the facility he was being kept at was attacked, back before you died." Their questions stopped for a time as they both thought through the new batch of information I had given them, probably still processing the first batch of information I had given as well, as a matter of fact, but I didn't complain about the chance to reorganize my thoughts, amazed at my ability so far to explain things so clearly. Perhaps I had been underestimating my conversational skills lately – my limited conversations on the street must have helped somewhat.  
"Why did they give the serum to you, if it was so limited?" Ah, I knew a difficult question would be coming soon.  
"This is a little more complicated," I told Steve, wondering where to begin while still making sense. He nodded in understanding, letting me take my time to gather my thoughts, for which I was grateful.  
"I was captured when I was young," I finally started. "Fifteen, I think, and since I was so young they didn't think that my ability would be fully developed, so they had a room for me – My Room – where they would keep me while they weren't experimenting on me so that I would continue to age normally, rather than trying to preserve me in any way." An inevitable shudder ran through me as it always does at the thought of My Room, the memory of insanity tugging at the edges of my mind.  
"They forgot that I'm human, not just another machine, and when they left me in there for too long I went insane. My mind wasn't useful to them anymore, but they still didn't know everything about my ability, and that was a problem, because in order for my ability to be useful my mind has to be useful, so they took a chance that would either leave me broken or make it possible to fix me. They injected the serum so that they could mess with my brain; make me forget that I was insane." There was a quick intake of breath from Agent Romanoff, while Steve's mouth just pressed into a thin line and his brows came together to form a frown.  
"You don't have any idea who captured you?" I shook my head slightly, my word vomit finally seeming to have ended, so when I remembered briefly the smudged image of what looked like a blood red spider, or octopus or something, I kept my mouth shut in the fear that I wouldn't shut it once I opened it.  
"Thank you," Steve said, signaling that the questions were over, for which I was grateful. "For telling us all of that; I'm sure it was hard for you." Still forcing my mouth to stay closed I simply nodded and leaned my head against the window.  
I hadn't meant to fall asleep, but it had been a few stressful hours since I last slept, which hadn't been as long a time as I would have liked in the first place, so I guess it was understandable that the next time I opened my eyes it was to find that we had already reached our destination.  
We were in front of a gate encircling what looked like a kind of camp, only it was really old and run down. It seemed like just the place for bad things to happen, so I wondered just what trouble we'd find next. But first came the problem of the gate.  
"How are we planning on getting through that?" We could scale the gate. Or Steve could bend it out of shape so we could slip through. Then again we could try to pick the lock, though all of the rust would probably make it rather tricky, but not impossible. I continued to analyze and evaluate different ways that we could get through, waiting for Steve to name it – he did seem more of the leader type – but my thoughts came to a halt when Agent Romanoff simply walked up to the gate and shot the chain with a gun she had on her person, severing it. I blinked once, attempting to conceal my surprise, but Steve was looking for it on my face and smirked.  
"She is the Black Widow," he said as explanation. Black Widow? So do I call her Agent Romanoff or Black Widow? Perhaps another alias? But why would he use her alias? Maybe a nickname? So complicated.  
Shaking off my shock, I followed them through the gate. The two searched for something that would be the 'data point', whatever that was, but as I had little to no knowledge of technology and how it works, I left them to it, instead looking at the long abandoned buildings, scoping out escape routes and potential weapons at the back of my head without hardly realizing it.  
Despite my curiousness of our surroundings, my gaze wouldn't stop being drawn to Steve – he was looking around just as I was, but with a different emotion than I was. I frowned slightly as I tried to find the name of what it was his face was showing. After a moment I gave up on finding the name and instead found the feelings associated with the word – a bitter taste on one's tongue, sorrow pulsing in one's heart, lost possibilities. He was feeling sentimental; nostalgic.  
I approached him rather slowly – still observing the surroundings – but not so slowly as to look suspicious,  
"You know this place?" I asked, as I matched his stance as he stared at the stabbing finger of an old flag pole, seeing memories just beyond his reach.  
"I knew this place," he corrected, just as I corrected The Director when he supposed No One was my name; it was automatic, without thought. I waited for clarification.  
"This is where I tested to see if I would become a super soldier." I looked around the camp with new respect – it's been a long time since this place has seen the face of Steve Rogers. "I was small back then," he continued, shooting a glance at me. "Before the serum. I hardly taller than you, I think." I raised my eyebrows slightly, sizing him up. He just so happened to tower over me, so I could hardly imagine a smaller version of him.  
I wanted to ask questions – to elaborate on the little information he had given me – but once again saw the sorrow in his eyes of an escaped life, and decided that making him dive into his past when it was so harshly ripped away from him wasn't a very nice thing to do.  
I felt a burst of pride at that deduction: the old me, Asset, would never have been so considerate. I'm getting better at being No One the person, instead of Asset the machine.  
"You were very small," I said as a matter-of-fact, rather than anything thought-provoking. He smirked at me, turning from the pole.  
"I was, wasn't I?" I wasn't exactly sure what to answer that question with – I had been the one to say it, after all – but was saved that internal debate by Agent Romanoff.  
"Have you been standing there this whole time? Slackers. Well, Rogers, I think we got the wrong coordinates. This place is ancient; there's no way the signal came from here." A frown from Steve, but he seemed to take her word for it as he turned from me and the pole to follow her, and I went to follow him in turn when he stopped once again to stare at some building. I turned to it as well, trying to figure out what was wrong, and tried to make sense of the military jumbo coming from his mouth, but all I really understood was that the building ultimately didn't belong there (for my record, I don't think Agent Romanoff was too far ahead of me), so we went to it.  
This time Steve broke the lock with his impressive shield, having taken the very idea from Agent Romanoff's performance out at the front gate. It was a headquarters for S.H.I.E.L.D., a really old headquarters. There was an eagle painted on one wall, empty bookshelves everywhere as well as long abandoned desks and chairs.  
"This was S.H.I.E.L.D. Probably where it started." I had figured as much, but knowing Agent Romanoff thought the same was also slightly comforting. I spotted Steve staring at some pictures on the wall with that look again, the sad nostalgic one, and this time Agent Romanoff caught it, too, but she didn't seem to recognize it like I did.  
"That's Howard Stark," she said. My head snapped up to the top picture. So this is him; the man who helped to make me who I am now. I took in his slicked hair and the little mustache he probably prided so much, and my eyes narrowed slightly.  
He had helped take my life away.  
"Who's the girl?"  
"No one." It was quick, too quick, and I dragged my gaze from Howard Stark to the woman who seemed to have my title. So she was No One, too? That peaked my curiosity. She certainly didn't carry the air of a No One. Glancing at Steve as he hurried away, I wondered if he had meant it as a title, like mine, or as an excuse to escape more painful memories.  
I moved my eyes to the young woman again, taking in her styled hair, fair skin, and deep experienced eyes. No, she was definitely a Someone, and judging by Steve's reaction, he had known her well.  
Agent Romanoff walked away first, going after Steve, and I found myself following her. I was tired of being stuck in another's memories – it's hard enough trying to decipher my own memories. We stopped in front of a bookshelf that Steve seemed to be inspecting.  
"Why does a secret room," he said before pulling the book shelf away to reveal a hidden door that I recognized to be the doors of an elevator. "Need a hidden elevator?"  
Of course, Agent Romanoff used her amazing cell phone thing to hack the lock and we took the hidden elevator in the hidden room in the building that didn't belong, and I got the distinct feeling that this was the exact trouble I had been anticipating.  
We reached the bottom and as the doors opened I was only slightly surprised to find that there weren't any secret people that also didn't belong waiting for us with guns, ready to shoot us. I'd have to say it was a pleasant feeling; I don't particularly like it when people try to kill me. We walked out of the pleasantly – though creepily – human devoid room filled with machines.  
"This can't be the data point. This technology is ancient." Even I could see that the technology in here was different than everything else I had seen so far – older, just like the headquarters above. I eyed something just as it caught Agent Romanoff's eye. It looked more…modern. Our suspicions were confirmed when she put the small object into the other small object and it began making whirring noises as everything turned on, including the screen in front of us. I looked up frown the whirring machine as the lights above us flickered on, scanning the room once again for threats with the better lighting, though I was happy to find that there still weren't any threats. Yet.  
"Initiate system?" came a slurred mechanical voice as the same words appeared on the screen. Being the most technologically inclined of the three of us, Agent Romanoff naturally took the lead.  
"Y E S means yes," she said and I frowned. I never really took her as the pointless mumbling type. As she pressed Enter more whirring ensued and I could see her rather evil looking smile as she opened her mouth again, more nonsense spewing out.  
"Do you want to play a game?" She asked in a dark voice. "It's from a movie –" she began to explain, but Steve cut her off.  
"I know, I saw it." Well, I haven't, and I didn't get a chance to pursue the topic because the screen began to flicker until it had taken the shape of a face.  
"Rogers, Steven, born 1918." That voice brought the twinge of forgotten memories, and I tried to place where I knew it from, and why it caused me to feel so scared. The unpleasantness of this forgotten memory was to the extent that I didn't even think to have another mental debate on this new name – Steven – that Steve also had. The camera above the screen rotated until it faced Agent Romanoff.  
"Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984."  
"It must be some sort of recording."  
"I am not a recording, Fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."  
"You know this thing?"  
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." My heart stopped once again just as my blood chilled and all of my thoughts went on halt. I remember that name – I could see the face and feel the pain of needles, of surgeries associated with that name. I took an unconscious step back, before realizing that he was a computer and there was no way he could get me.  
"And you," the awful voice continued. "You don't know who you are, do you? A nasty side effect of the brainwashing without proper preparation with cryofreeze, unfortunately. The machine wasn't always so precise as one would wish, in taking only the memories we wanted gone." My eyes widened slightly, fear pumping through my veins as the initial shock wore off.  
"You," I said raggedly. He was there, when I woke up. He was the one who ordered the first tests, the training regimes. My Room. It was him, and the fear I felt all of those years ago surged up as if it were new, trying to force its way onto the surface. If it weren't for my training it would have succeeded, and I didn't want to think of what I'd be reduced to if that were the case.  
"Yes. Not much was ever said around you, so I imagine you're still very confused about many things. That's how we created you, after all: to get all information. But I guess that doesn't matter now, does it." It wasn't a question. "So why don't I explain more to all three of you while you're here." He then explained things that made a lot of sense to the other two, flashing pictures of people I'd never seen and others I was familiar with. All I got from it was that he had been the mole in S.H.I.E.L.D. for HYDRA, which Steve had thought to have destroyed long ago, and that they were causing disasters worldwide for their own personal gain. And, interesting as this all was, it still wasn't telling me what any of this had to do with me. Apparently Steve noticed as well.  
"What does she have to do with any of this?"  
"Ah yes, The Asset." I cringed at my old title. "You are involved in a rather small though significant way. In 1953 we received word of a girl who could heal the pain of others, so we took her. It was easy, no family or friends who would miss her. Imagine my joy when you were brought to me. A natural phenomenon, that's what you are. I figured that you were an experiment of Erkstin's, but our tests proved otherwise." He showed signs of continuing forever so I interrupted while I could.  
"You said you took me. Who was I before?"  
"Don't interrupt," he snapped. "You were always rather rude. But yes, I can see where your concern on that topic would come up. Don't worry, though, you were a no one who came from a family of no ones." I took a step closer to him.  
"I didn't ask what I was. I asked who I was." He raised his blurry computer eyebrows and let out a chuckle I didn't want to hear; I wanted him to get on with it already.  
"Come now. The machine wasn't so inaccurate as to take all memories of your childhood."  
I raised my head slightly. Was this a puzzle? Was he just trying to get in my head? This guy was worse at giving straight answers than I was, and that's saying a lot.  
"What do you mean?"  
"What I mean is that you still remember most of your life before you were captured by HYDRA. I'm not surprised you've suppressed it, though. It does make sense, considering your circumstances. You spoke much, when you first were captured, about the hardships of your life." Something tugged at the front of my brain: hours spent talking to myself in the empty darkness of My Room, just trying to fill the void with the meaningless babble that always seemed to fill my mind.  
"Unfortunately, you won't have the opportunity to rediscover your memories. You see, all of us, we're out of time. I've been stalling, Captain," he said, the camera rotating again so it focused on Steve once again.  
"We've got a bogey headed for us. 30 seconds tops." Only Steve was too stubborn to die, and it was in both mine and Agent Romanoff's best interest to follow him as he ripped off a piece of the floor, all of us going for it as the bomb exploded behind us, barely landing in the hole in time.  
As it turned out, his shield was only large enough to hardly fit the three of us beneath, and I watched as Agent Romanoff was knocked unconscious, Steve's strained groans sounding behind me, seconds before I was hit myself. A searing pain filled my head and I was glad to collapse as consciousness left me, sending me to the land of dreams.


	8. I'm No One

Chapter 8  
I'm No One  
(But Perhaps I'm Someone)  
The thing about being a child working in the factories is that the only thing you know for those hours in the dry, suffocating air is the work you have to do, and after a while everything else seems to leave you completely; gone.  
I started being No One as soon as I stepped foot in those mills, and even though I still had a name I was still a No One inside, because there wasn't anything but my work inside me, and work doesn't make a person a someone.  
So perhaps I've been No One for longer than I thought, because as soon as I stepped foot out of those mills I was consumed with my need to survive, and after that my will to not die as an Asset.  
Now that my title is No One, though, I feel like less of a No One than ever before.  
…  
The problem with having a psycho scientist give you a vague outline of the childhood you only remember pieces of is that it tends to create a flood of other brief outlines you hadn't remembered to take over your mind, and it's really overwhelming and unpleasant. It's much worse than unpleasant, actually, and if I knew anyone with issues similar to my own I wouldn't recommend it at all.  
As it was, as soon as I was knocked unconscious images flooded my mind – I do hope Agent Romanoff wasn't experiencing the same thing – and at first it wasn't so bad, until it was really bad.  
I was born on August 13th, 1938, at the end of the Great Depression, and the Beginning of World War Two. After my father died fighting in the war my family grew to have even less money, so they only option open to us was to find a new source of income.  
From then on mother worked in a mill for a solid twelve or thirteen hours a day, making clothes in confined spaces with dirty air and little to no personal space and barely enough money to keep the law off our backs. Just as during the Great Depression we were back to begging for food and digging through garbage for anything we could find that was edible.  
My little brother became my responsibility as she was gone from the house for longer and longer, and I became thinner and thinner as I gave him my food to try and keep the skin on his bones. Then, when I was only weeks from being eleven he got sick, and it was then that I found my gift, or what mother liked to call my 'God-send'. Just a week before, Little Tommy's teacher had taken leave for suspected tuberculosis. I thought that was it; there was no way my Little Tommy could get such a deadly disease. Well he did.  
Once I had identified the symptoms I warned mother, but it frightened her, and she ignored me. Most adults aren't very brave, especially when they don't have the money to be. I figured the fear she felt was not only for the disease itself, but of the money a doctor's visit would cost, and I guess I was afraid as well, though I couldn't help but feel a bit ashamed of my mother for feeling more fear for our financial state than her son, but I quickly swatted the feeling aside.  
Since mother couldn't very well raise money to take him, I did my best. Days were spent in the blistering summer sun with an upturned hat, pity-filled faces looking down at us, and an empty stomach, begging for money. Few turned to give us coins, many ignored us altogether, and I couldn't help but feel that they were afraid of us, too, because they didn't have the money to be brave; my family was certainly not the only one struggling.  
Finally, I had the money for a visit to the doctor, but by then Little Tommy was coughing hard enough I was surprised when his inners didn't come out with the air forced from his lungs, and the doctor gave me a sad face, said Little Tommy didn't have long, and sent me out. I told this to mother, and she cried, then put it out of her mind and went to sleep so she could leave early for work in the morning. I cried that night, too, not only for my Little Tommy, but also for mother, who didn't act as if she was the mother anymore.  
A week after, when it was obvious Little Tommy was taking his last labored breaths, I took him in my arms for what seemed the last time, and wished with everything in me that I could take his suffering away and he could be happy and healthy again. And I did. Abruptly, his breathing evened out, and as I was trying to convince myself that it wasn't because he was dead – but because his breaths had miraculously evened out – a terrible, agonizing pain filled my chest. No one took care of Little Tommy that day, because I was sick, too sick to move, and mother was at work, but that was okay because he was healthy.  
In my fevered state I had trouble remembering that he was alive and well, but his crying – for want of warm arms to comfort him or for a grumbling stomach – kept me anchored until mother got home and did what bit she could to make me better. It took a day or so, but I was walking again. Even better, Little Tommy was walking, too. The five year old ball of energy was back, and mother called it a miracle, and when I told her it was me, she called me crazy – that I still had a fever – until one day she came home with an ugly gash on her arm – an accident at the old mill. I healed her like I healed Little Tommy, writhing in agony for hours until the pain faded, and mother called me a God-send.  
Unfortunately, the accident causing the gash in her arm wasn't the end of the story, and a few days later it wasn't mother who came home late in the night, it was my Uncle George, a man mother always spoke foully of, and he said we were to come home with him; mother had died in another accident, along with nearly all of the other people in the mill.  
So I took Little Tommy, our few belongings, and whatever food I had scrounged up, and we left with Uncle George, leaving behind our life to begin another.  
I learned why mother spoke such awful things of Uncle George. The mills mother had labored in for so long she forgot she was a mother, and the place that became her coffin, were forced upon me. Uncle George said he was too old, and since women had wanted to work outside the house so bad it was only fair that I be able to work, but really, he was just an awful, lazy man who needed someone to support his habit.  
I made sure Little Tommy continued his schooling, not only to guarantee his future, but to keep him away from Uncle George's slaps, but when I returned home the abuse was obvious on the little boy's face in the red marks on his chubby cheeks. Confronting Uncle George about it ensured a slap of my own, but I did it anyway; if I could handle the ache of an angry stomach for Little Tommy, I could handle the slap of an angry Uncle George for him, too, and I did.  
Then I returned home one day from the mills, when I was thirteen years old, and Little Tommy wasn't in his bed. Upon further inspection there was an alarming spatter of red mixed in with the shattered glass of a beer bottle, and a nearly guilty looking Uncle George standing in the kitchen, less sober than usual, with red on his hands.  
He had killed him. My Little Tommy was gone, after everything we had been through, and it was because of Uncle George.  
My earsplitting scream had the neighbors calling the police to our door, but by then Uncle George had a bloody nose and a good concussion, and I was well out of there. No way was I going an orphanage with conditions worse than the place I came from.  
I lasted two years on the streets before They found me. I'd like to say it's not my fault, but it is. I had been careless, and I couldn't blame anyone but myself. But the boy looked like Little Tommy, and he was sick, so what could I do but heal him? And it helped. It helped the gnawing knot of guilt that whispered that it's my fault. If you were there you could've stopped Uncle George, and I found myself helping another little boy, and another, until I was helping everyone.  
They found me during the night, when I was sleeping off the pain of the people I had helped that day – composed mainly of young children when reminded me of my past – and all I remember of it was a sting, alarm, then darkness.  
...  
I gasped as I woke up, struggling against the arms that were holding me – afraid they were the arms from my dreams; memories.  
"Stop it, stop struggling," came a voice, a familiar voice. I turned to the person – who was carrying me, apparently – and slowly recognized his face. Steve Rogers, Captain America…Steve.  
"Steve," I breathed, before struggling to get down, and he let me. Once I was standing on my own (attempting anyway. Steve had to help me stay upright for my first few steps) I shook my head as we ran through a dark forest, distant lights shining behind us from both the orange glow of fire and the electric white of lights from cars and helicopters. Finally regaining my senses somewhat, I noticed the black clad body slung over Steve's other shoulder.  
"Is she alright?" I asked. He nodded gruffly, still keeping his pace, and that was it for the conversation – not that I was complaining – and we continued to run at an insanely fast pace that I was surprised to find to be easy, until we found the road we had traveled on before and slowed to a walk, each of us holding a thumb out in what was apparently the sign for "I need a ride".  
"You've never hitchhiked before?" he asked. I shook my head, watching as another car drove past us, speeding even faster than before, if I wasn't mistaken.  
"Don't you think we'll scare everyone away with Agent Romanoff slung over your shoulder like that?" He looked over to me, gave a look I couldn't quite identify, and looked away again, sighing. I hadn't even mentioned what we ourselves looked like, which I'm sure would scare others off all on its own.  
"I guess we just have to wait for someone who doesn't mind." We continued walking with our thumbs out in the hitchhiker sign as I processed that information. Detecting a sound behind us, assessing the personality of the driver before he was even close enough to get a good view of us, I made up my mind – the only people who would pick up people like us, beat up and suspicious, wouldn't be good news.  
"I don't know about you, but I don't think I want to be in that kind of person's car," I said, before causally walking in middle of the road and spreading my arms out. Hopefully they'll see me; I don't particularly want to die in such an undignified way.  
The mix between Steve's shouts and the screams of the tires was lost on me as I convinced myself not to move – I knew by now that the car wouldn't hit me if the driver continued to break like he was – because if I did move he'd likely drive off like all of the others before him.  
I was right, though. He stopped nearly a yard before hitting me, but the two were still angry.  
"What was that! You can't do that!" That was Steve. He was much nicer than the driver, who was adding new words to my street kid vocabulary. Thankfully, his anger turned Steve's anger away from me, to calming down the driver.  
"I'm sorry, but we need a ride. Just to the nearest civilization." The man wasn't going to buy it, so I did the only thing a person with limited vocabulary could do in such a situation: I used what I knew.  
"Don't you know who this is? He's Captain America. Didn't you hear about New York?" That's about all I knew that wouldn't seem odd to mention in this context.  
But he didn't believe my perfectly honest words, so he cussed at me again and turned to Steve for an explanation. He sighed and shook his head in that way I've come to notice he does often, finally stilling as he came to a decision.  
"It's true," he said – he sighed it, really – then adjusted Agent Romanoff on his shoulder to free the shield he had stuck on his back beneath her, then showed it to the driver who's attitude changed immediately.  
"Oh! I didn't – I'm mean I couldn't have – it's an honor. My dad, yeah, he fought in Germany. Air pilot, I mean." He motioned for us to follow him as he got back in his car and we shared a brief look before doing so. A curser whose father was a veteran was definitely more preferable than the psycho who might have picked us up otherwise.  
"Hey, you can't just do that. It's not okay to throw yourself in front of cars," he said, as if instructing a mentally challenged person, so I shot him a look this time.  
"I know, but it was better than getting into the car of a psycho who might've picked us up otherwise," I explained, wishing he would stop talking so that my head could stop aching already. My arms were aching too, for that matter. Actually, everything ached. On top of being scratched raw from the building as well as poked with an IV, I'd just been crushed by a building before running for miles.  
"What do you mean by that?" Natasha's head lolled until she was laying on top of my head. It would have make me feel rather embarrassed if I had been conscious about my height – or lack of it at exactly five feet– but as it was I ignored her as I continued the conversation.  
"What kind of people pick up people like us?" I meant it as a rhetorical question – as in I didn't want him to answer – but he kept talking anyway, to the annoyance of my head.  
"Look, I know you've really been through a lot of bad things, but not everyone is out to get us. Some people – a lot of people – are good people." He brings up a fair point, I suppose.  
"It's not something I'm willing to risk," I explained softer. He sighed once more, looking down as Agent Romanoff switched to his shoulder. I sighed in response to his, lowering my voice so the driver couldn't hear over the sound of the heating system and wind. "Look, Steve, I know we don't know each other very well. But you don't know what they'd do to you – to all three of us – if they got us, and you really don't want to know." He turned to look me in the eyes, and I looked just as deep into his. "You don't want to take that chance either, Steve. Trust me."  
Agent Romanoff woke up when we were a few minutes from a town, interrupting Steve and the driver's talk of World War Two, and I couldn't help but be kind of grateful for the interruption, as well as the fact that now Steve wouldn't have to carry her around, gaining unwanted attention, though I suppose it wouldn't be all that suspicious since it was still an ungodly hour in the morning. She sat up rather abruptly – she had been on my head again – though it was obvious she regretted it by the way she groaned.  
"Ugh. I feel like I was run over."  
"Close," Steve said. "But a building fell on you."  
"Oh, well that's much better." I blinked at her. Was she being serious? Or was she joking? She flexed her back and the bones popped, making me flinch a bit in slight disgust. Perhaps she was being serious but joking at the same time. Was that possible?  
"Is here alright?" the driver asked.  
"Yes this is fine. Thank you, sir." I looked out of the window, watching as the houses came closer together until the car stopped. Steve and Agent Romanoff both thanked the driver, and I wasn't entirely sure if I should thank him or apologize for jumping in front of his car, so I settled for a shrug/nod thing which he pretty much ignored anyway before driving off, saying goodbye to the other two one more time.  
We didn't have any issues getting a map from the nearest 24/7 store even without any money, thanks to Agent Romanoff's amazing skills in getting what she wants, and though I didn't know where we were when Steve said it, I did understand that we would have to 'borrow' another car to get where he wanted to go. When asked more about it he simply answered that it was a friend. Oddly enough, Agent Romanoff didn't seem to believe him. She began drilling him on whether the friend was a girl, which he seemed to find annoying yet normal.  
"Good news," he interrupted her, refolding the map. "If we borrow another car we should be back in D.C. a little after the sun comes up. Bad news: I don't think the owners of the last car are getting it back." Agent Romanoff gave him an amused look before wincing and bringing her hand to her head.  
"Your head still hurts," said Steve immediately, though I'm guessing he meant to phrase it as more of a question.  
"I'm fine." No she wasn't. I could feel her pain slightly in the back of my head, begging to be healed. So I did, just as I'd been trained to do.  
I reached up and touched the rather large bump on her head with dried blood around it, and though Agent Romanoff at first tried to flinch away from my hand she must've felt the relief as her pain left. A moment later I moved my hand away, wincing as a bit of her pain became my own. We both reached up to feel our heads – me for the new pain, her for the loss of pain – and eventually she looked at me.  
"Thanks." I nodded, feeling lighter than before. I'm not usually thanked for healing people.  
Finding a good car wasn't too difficult, since Agent Romanoff seemed to know cars well, so once again Steve hotwired it and we took off into the dark. Now that Natasha was feeling better she thought to use her cool phone that could do everything to give us directions to where Steve wanted to go – somewhere in D.C. – before Steve insisted the two of us get some sleep. I didn't have to be told twice since I was now not only sleep deprived but also aching with both my own and Agent Romanoff's headaches, but first I had to get something off my chest.  
I looked at the two in front of me, fighting to keep my heavy eyelids open, and realized that even though we'd had a few tough times I was glad they had picked me off of the street: I was starting to feel like I was somebody again.  
"Thanks for bringing me to S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve," I muttered, but I knew he had heard. "And Agent Romanoff," she didn't say anything, but I knew she was listening. "I forgive you for knocking me out twice." She made an odd chuckling sound before turning around in her seat to look at me with something almost like a smile.  
"Call me Natasha." I smiled slightly before finally closing my eyes to sleep, and for once I didn't have nightmares.  
Perhaps someday I can be someone again.


	9. A Safe House

A Safe House  
(And Amazing Omelets)  
I remember very little of my father, since he died when I was young, but I'd heard enough stories about him that in my mind I could paint a hazy picture of who he was and what he was like. Apparently both of his children took after him more than mother in appearance – she was blonde and very pale, short and delicate, while father was half Italian, so he had dark hair and olive skin. Both me and Little Tommy took after his Italian features, neither of us taking mother's delicate look.  
"It's because Italians are strong," people told me that he'd say, but I didn't see how he would know, since he hadn't ever been to Italy himself.  
He was always itching in his shoes, wanting to travel and get away from the lie called the Great U.S., so it's no wonder he was out as soon as the war began. Mom was happy at home, though, sitting in her rocking chair taking care of Little Tommy, or spending the afternoon making bread when we had flour. I took after mother in this one thing – always more of a homebody – while Little Tommy yearned for the adventures in the books read to him at night.  
Life's unfair and cruel, I've found; I was forced into the adventure I never wanted and would never escape, while Little Tommy was forced to stay at home, six feet under.  
…  
Light was just coloring the horizon when we made it to D.C., and by the time the sun was just peeking its yellow head up we stopped the car a few streets away from where we were going, in case we picked up any unwanted attention. As I followed after Steve I looked around at the houses surrounding us while working out the cricks in my neck from the awkward position I fell asleep in.  
Finally determining that there weren't any obvious threats around us at the moment I turned my focus to the house we were now approaching. It was simple and rather inconspicuous, which immediately raised my suspicions. In my experience, no one Steve knew was normal, as far as I was concerned, and I doubted he would break the streak.  
I have to say, when a normal looking guy came to the door of the normal looking house I was rather disappointed, but easily perked up when he let us into his house.  
He walked up to the glass door before sliding it open with a rather confused look on his face.  
"Hey man," he said, the confusion never leaving his face as he took in our rugged appearances, his eyes lingering on me for a second longer than it had on Natasha, so I figured he had already met her before.  
"I'm sorry about this," Steve said before letting out a breath rather loudly. "We need a place to lay low."  
"Everyone we know is trying to kill us." He looked at Natasha again, and I was slightly surprised that he didn't show any shock or other similar emotions at the statement.  
"Not everyone." And that was it. One of the simplest conversations I've heard in days. He stepped aside and we immediately went in, not risking another second outside with the chance of being spotted and recognized in the increasing sunlight.  
I turned slightly as I passed him, watching as he scoped out the area like I had earlier, before shutting the doors and letting the blinds fall. Perhaps he wasn't as normal as I had first thought.  
We gathered in the front room which was surprisingly larger than I would have guessed judging by the outward appearance of the house, especially since it seemed this man lived alone.  
"Care to explain?" he asked. He said it as a question, but I knew he wanted answers. Steve and Natasha exchanged a look before turning back to the man hesitantly. He caught it, and nicely backed off for a bit.  
"Why don't you guys clean up a bit and then we'll talk about it?" Again, it was only voiced as a question. I gave the guy a look. I think I was starting to like this guy; he knows what he's doing. I scanned him again, looking at the way he held himself. Straight, confident, and having already learned not to fall under the weight people dumped on his shoulders. Definitely not normal. We eagerly took him up on his offer and scurried to the little bathroom attached to the bedroom he lead us to, showing us where the towels and the like were. Opting not to take full on showers, in case we had to leave without notice, we each grabbed rags and wet them to clean the blood and dust off of our skin before Natasha and I left the cramped confines of the bathroom, Steve staying behind. I left in favor of a comfortable armchair in the corner while Natasha followed my lead and took a seat on the bed. The two removed their shirts so they were covered only by their undershirts, and while I saw the logic in that decision I decided not to follow – I sported an impressive collection of scars that I wasn't in the habit of showing off.  
Only after I had finished washing my exposed skin and massage the dried blood from my hair did I notice that Natasha had stopped washing herself, though she was not done, and apparently Steve noticed as well.  
He came out of the bathroom and Natasha took up cleaning her hair again, curls showing now that her hair was wet.  
"You okay?" he asked.  
"Yeah." He obviously didn't buy that, as he tossed away the towel he was drying his hands on and walked her way. My jaw went slack as he entered my field of vision.  
He has muscles. A lot of muscles. I quickly shut my mouth before either noticed, and my eyes got a bit wider. I'm pretty sure people aren't supposed to have that much muscle. I quickly snapped my head in the other direction.  
His muscles had muscles.  
He sat down and looked into her eyes, and I had the feeling that I was interrupting a moment.  
"What's going on?" Time to leave. I stood up silently, trying to attract as little attention as possible as I just as quietly left the room, though Natasha's eyes flickered to me briefly before turning to Steve again. Once I had slipped out of the open door I was faced with the option of eavesdropping on the two or going and facing a stranger, and I honestly didn't know which was the better of the two. I was spared that choice when the stranger walked near the opening of the small hall leading to the room, spotting me, and I knew I had been caught by the look he sent me.  
I reluctantly peeled myself off the wall and followed as he began walking again.  
It's not so bad, I thought to myself. He seems like a pretty cool guy, so far. Then I reminded myself that bad guys are good at pretending to be people they're not, and the confidence I had mustered shattered again.  
I found him in the kitchen facing the stove, where he was flipping an omelet filled to the brim with the works, but despite not having eaten in far too long I couldn't find it in myself to be hungry – the dread was taking up all available room in my stomach.  
"I haven't seen you around before," he said, still facing the omelet.  
"I'm not surprised." He paused his motions and turned to shoot me a brief look before turning away again.  
"So how'd you meet Steve?" I blinked at the terrible length of the answer to that question, knowing that I wouldn't ever make it through an explanation like that and still sound sane, even with my surprisingly good conversational skills.  
"That's a very long story." He finally scooped the omelet onto a plate, making a total of four finished omelets, before turning to me, leaning against the counter.  
"So make it shorter." Despite the slight twinge of fear and anxiety I felt over his commanding voice I couldn't help but feel myself begin to like him even more. I was tempted to tell him once more that it was a long story, making sure this time to emphasize the word long, but instead took his words as a challenge. My conversational skills were better than I had thought they were, so let's see how good I am at condensing.  
"You know who Steve is, right?" I just had to clarify.  
"If you mean Captain America, then yes." Good, that would make things easier.  
"Then you know that he was born a long time ago." One more nod.  
"Well I was, too." I gave him some time to process that before continuing. "I was captured by HYDRA, who Steve had been working to destroy at the time." As I said that I felt something lift off of my chest. For years – so many years – I didn't know the name of the people who took everything from me, and now that I knew who they were, I found that I'm also with a person who once worked to destroy them. In other words, I have an ally.  
"They preserved me, and that's why I'm still alive, but I escaped and was living on my own until Steve and Natasha brought me to S.H.I.E.L.D., who we're now trying to hide from." Best summary ever. I took a look at Sam's completely lost look and took that thought back. Maybe it wasn't as clear as I thought.  
"Did that make sense?" His gaze jumped up from where it had been drilling holes into his table and met my eyes.  
"Yeah, that made sense. But I don't understand something." I was silent as he formed his question, glad that for once it wasn't me who was struggling for words.  
"So I understand that these people – HYDRA – captured you, then preserved you – I don't even want to know – but what I don't understand is why they took you. Why you, out of everyone they could have taken?" Ooh, the guy's sharp. I couldn't decide whether to admire him or despise him for this at the moment, though, and I opted not to answer.  
"So you made food?" Breakfast is what it's called at this time of day, but it's always food. He suspiciously let the topic drop before nodding.  
"You hungry?" I was surprised to find that I was in fact hungry. The knot of dread that had taken residence in my stomach seemed to have vacated, leaving the gnawing pain of hunger in its wake. I nodded, feeling saliva fill my mouth in anticipation.  
"You think they're hungry too? Do they even eat this kind of thing?" That question took me off guard, making me pause to think. Do they eat normal food? Natasha did, I'm sure, but what about Steve? Do super-humans need super-food, or something?  
"I haven't really seen them eat before, so I don't know." Judging by the look on his face he hadn't actually expected me to answer – whoops – but I watched as uncertainty slowly filled his expression as well.  
"I guess it won't hurt to tell them." And with that he left me alone in the kitchen as he went to tell the other two that there was food, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a plate with an omelet and a fork on it.  
I've never had an omelet before. Was there a special way to eat it? Quickly deciding that there wasn't a special way to eat it – as there was a fork on the plate – I began to wonder if I was supposed to wait for the others to come in before I began eating. Now thinking about it, I don't think I'd ever really eaten in another's presence, or at least from what I remember, and if I had it was a very long time ago. I frowned slightly as I tried to remember the original me, but what little I did remember of food was that it was all too rare, and that whenever there was enough for me to eat after I fed Little Tommy I made sure to do it quickly, as if it might disappear if I looked at it too long. Looking up at the omelet I decided to do just that.  
Quickly swooping in and taking a plate as my victim I just as swiftly sat down in the chair, bringing my shoulders around the plate after I set it down – as a type of protective shield – and dug in. For all I knew the other three people would want my food, too, and I sure wasn't letting that happen.  
By the time Sam came back into the room I was nearly half way done with it and he eyed my protective form with slight amusement, making me feel slightly ashamed.  
"I was born during the Great Depression, alright?" I mumbled in explanation, but he didn't say anything and instead poured an orange colored drink into a cup with some ice and set it down in front of me. Once his back was turned, grabbing the other plates to set on the table, I eyed the liquid. It was orange. Indignation rose inside of me, and I felt myself get slightly offended: if he was trying to poison me he should at least try to do it in a less conspicuous way.  
I turned to look at him just in time to see him pouring more glasses of the orange stuff that might be poison, before blinking as I watched him take a drink out of one of the cups himself. My eyes slid back to the cup as I took it into my hands. Perhaps it wasn't poison? I slowly brought it up to my lips and braced myself for a painful death as I took a small sip.  
Definitely not poison. Omelet all but forgotten, I took another sip of the drink and just held it in my mouth, relishing the taste. I was sitting like that when the other two walked in and took chairs around the table.  
"Thank you, Sam," Steve said as he picked up his fork, and I knew he wasn't only referring to the food. It was then that I realized that I hadn't even gotten the stranger's name yet.  
"Nah, it's my pleasure. It gets boring with just me around here, so being a host is fine." Though the conversation was light, I knew it was simply small talk and was waiting for the real conversation to begin. We all took a few more bites of the delicious wonder called an omelet before Steve put his fork down and cleared his throat. Here it goes.  
"I guess you've probably heard by now that Fury died?" Sam nodded. "Well what the news hasn't said is that he was killed by a man called the Winter Soldier. You heard of him?" Sam brought his elbows up onto the table and clasped them together.  
"A bit." None of us had expected more than that, considering he was thought to be a ghost story.  
Natasha took over the explanation. "When Fury died he gave Steve a flash drive containing information that he had me retrieve earlier, and we were brought to New Jersey trying to figure it out when S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to kill us." At this she lost Sam.  
"Yeah, so why's S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to get rid of you anyway? I thought you were all the good guys." Steve looked down briefly before looking into Sam's eyes again.  
"Before Fury died he informed me that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised, and while in New Jersey we found out that over the years it's slowly become infested with the rogue Nazi division that I thought was destroyed back during World War Two."  
"So what're you going to do about it?" This question had been on my mind as well. Steve and Natasha shared a brief look.  
"We're still trying to figure that out."  
We continued our meal as we let Sam think over the things they'd told him. Halfway through my omelet, though, I found I couldn't eat anymore as the omelet was way bigger than anything I'd eaten in, well, ever, so I finally slid the rest of it over to the super human with super metabolism and asked him to finish it for me, as he still looked just as hungry as when he started. He was skeptical at first, and I reasoned in my mind that this wasn't very socially appropriate, but his hunger seemed to have won in the end and he inhaled it just as fast as he had the last one.  
Finally, Natasha and I cleared off the table while Steve opted to clean the dishes, Sam walking out of the room without doing anything. I would've been slightly annoyed that he was leaving us to the cleaning, but figured that he had been the one to make the food in the first place, so I guess it was fine for him to leave. He wasn't slacking, as it turned out, and he came back in with a folder once we'd finished.  
"What's this?" Steve asked, who was now sitting at the table with Natasha.  
"Consider it my resume." What's a resume? I wasn't able to voice my question because Steve was talking again, but from the words said I could pretty much guess what it is that Sam wanted.  
"I can't ask you to do this."  
"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to start up again." Steve reluctantly opened the file, his eyes immediately going wide in shock.  
"You told me you were a pilot." Sam's face showed clear amusement and I couldn't help but wonder what was in the file.  
"I never said pilot." Finally, curiosity getting the better of me, I wandered over from my spot at the counter and peered into the file from behind Steve's back, and even though I didn't understand a lot of the words written, I got the gist.  
Oh, this is going to be fun.


	10. A Name

Chapter 10  
A Name  
(Not A Title)  
To be given a title is to be given a purpose – your title is what you are. If you're the prankster, what can you do but prank? If you're a captain, what can you do but lead? I think I've gone long enough with my title, though, because my purpose is not what my title has entitled me for.  
To be given a name is to be given an identity – the name given by a loved one, the cruel jabs from bullies. They all go toward your identity, however you take them. I think I've gone long enough without a real purpose, and it's about time I got my own identity.  
…  
Since I was still recovering from injuries and aches, it was determined that only Steve and Natasha would go get the wings Sam once used and, since Sam himself wasn't a super soldier or a trained assassin/spy, he would be staying as well.  
Once the two had taken off again in the 'borrowed' car I felt the dread build up again, simply because I knew he'd want to ask questions I wouldn't want to answer, and also because it takes a lot for me to trust people, and even though Steve trusts him, and I trust Steve, I'd only just met the guy a few hours ago.  
I was pleasantly surprised, though, when he just sat down on the couch with a magazine and put his feet up on the coffee table.  
"There's a TV, books, magazine…" He trailed off, motioning to the things. "I get the feeling we have a while, so make yourself comfortable." Good idea. One problem, though. I looked around at the things he'd motioned to, and then back to him. I've never really had to make myself comfortable before.  
I looked at him again. He looks comfortable. I hesitantly sat down on the sofa across from the couch, then picked up a magazine. Taking a final look at him, I perched my feet up on the table delicately as well – I'd never done that, either – opening the magazine to a random page and tried to get interested in it like he seemed to be interested in his.  
My eyes shot up when a chuckle sounded from in front of me, my gaze locking with Sam's.  
"What?" I asked. I had gotten comfortable, hadn't I? He shook his head, sitting up normally.  
"No, nothing." I followed his lead and sat up, putting the magazine down. "You never did answer my question, though." I didn't need him to clarify which question, and he must've seen the discomfort in my look, though I thought I had hidden it rather well. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." But that's exactly the problem. If I didn't tell him about my ability now, he'd probably just end up figuring out about it later since we were apparently taking him in on our little team of sorts, so I guess I would have to tell him eventually whether I wanted to or not. May as well get it over now, then.  
"I can heal people." He took this in stride, which I hadn't really expected though wasn't surprised about either.  
"And how'd you learn to do that?" He asked it so normally, as if we were having a simple conversation on the weather.  
"I was born this way." The answer was effortless, seamless, and I wondered if telling people deep secrets was supposed to be this easy. "I found out when my brother got sick." His eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch, and I took pleasure in the slight surprise I had given him, all while feeling a pleasant tingle in my throat. It's because I hadn't really vocalized that I had a brother, and while there was a pleasant tingle at the words, there was also a bitter pang in my heart as I remembered my poor brother's fate.  
"And I assume you healed him." I nodded slightly; I had healed him, and then he died. For the first time in what felt like ages, though it had only been decades, a lump formed in my throat and tears tickled the back of my eyes. Even though it had been tough and rather awful, I found myself missing my old life. The life where I was still relatively innocent, where mother and I were barely scraping by, but there were always the constants of life accompanying me everywhere. I miss who I used to be – the person who was taken from me so abruptly and forcefully.  
I felt harsh memories I hadn't faced in far too long surfacing, and I knew I had to release them just as I had in my dark, empty room back when I was Asset. But I still had enough sense to look Sam deep into the eyes, looking for something – anything – that would like to hurt me in any way. All I found was open curiosity, though, and a growing sense of concern as my silence grew longer.  
The concern did it, I think. It's what drew the words out of my throat, and before I knew it I was pouring out all of my concerns and worries, old memories and new experiences, hurts and joys alike, getting mixed between all of the emotions that I could hardly tell whether I was saying what my brain was thinking anymore.  
I was relieved when he didn't say anything hurtful as I spoke, but even more grateful that he didn't ignore me as I was so afraid he would. I couldn't handle being looked past anymore; I'm sick of being No One.  
Once I had finished bearing my soul out I quickly composed myself, wiping the tears away that I hadn't let escape the shelter of my eyes, and then I held my breath as I waited for him to say something – would he say something cruel? Would he try to comfort me, though these memories were far in the past?  
He took a breath and opened his mouth, but what came out wasn't at all what I expected.  
"So you can't remember your name at all?" Now it was my turn to be surprised, but I nodded nonetheless. He thought about this for another second, leaning his head forward to rest in his hands before looking up into my eyes.  
"Would you like a name?" My eyes widened, quite comically I'm sure, and I took in a quick breath before nodding once again, quite a bit more enthusiastically. He sat up and clapped his hands together, rubbing them.  
"Alright. I've never named anyone before, so it'll probably take a few tries." I didn't care what the name was at all – I just wanted a name already. He looked up, resting a hand on his chin, and thought for a second. Perhaps he hadn't quite realized that I was bursting to the seams with excitement. I wanted to snap at him to hurry up, but couldn't quite find it in myself to speak, so I waited with a bated breath.  
His gaze eventually lowered from the ceiling and into my eyes and he finally spoke.  
"So, there's May, or –" I nodded as soon as it was out of his mouth. I didn't care, as long as I had a name. No longer would I be No One!  
"What? I haven't even told you them all! I thought up a whole list and everything! There's Jade, Rachel, Lydia. You could go original with weird names no one's heard of before, too, like Tiwanda, or…you're not listening to me, are you?" And I would have answered something, I'm sure, except I really wasn't listening.  
May. I felt a smile forming on my lips and for once didn't force it down as I continued to repeat the name in my head, getting the feel for it as my smile continued to grow. Whereas my first name, the one I don't remember, felt like clouds and sounded like bells, this one felt soft and left me with a light feeling I could only describe as happy. My large grin made Sam go quiet, not that I would know he was talking in the first place, and I leaped up out of my seat.  
"I'm May! I have a name!" He stood up, too, grinning along with me. He chuckled slightly.  
"May it is." And before I knew it I had made it around the little coffee table and thrown my arms around him in the first hug I'd given since Little Tommy.  
"Thank you! Thank you!" He stiffened slightly at first before putting his arms around me as well. Never before had anyone been so nice and considerate toward me before. Sure, Steve was a good guy, and he had protected me, but Sam had given me a name. I squeezed him one more time before taking a step back and thrusting my hand out in the way I'd observed people do so many times before, but been unable to do myself.  
"Hi, I'm May." And that's my name, not my title. He smiled at me as well, matching my own.  
"Well it's nice to meet you, May. I'm Sam." And for the first time in what felt like forever, I threw my head back and laughed in delight.


	11. Of Kidnapping An Enemy

Chapter 11  
Of Kidnapping An Enemy  
(And Saving A Friend)  
When I was young friends were a rarity. It was hard for anyone to have friends back then, but I watched as girls huddled together in the biting cold of winter every day after school while I hurried home with Little Tommy, knowing that if I didn't get home quick to make supper mother would be sleeping with an empty stomach, which meant she would be working tomorrow with an empty stomach.  
I tried to encourage Little Tommy to have friends, too, but was always selfishly relieved when he never chose to hoard around other kids like the other boys his age did, because if he had friends they'd want to come over, and I'd have to feed them with the food we never had.  
I'd had friends when I was little, of course, before I had realized just how cruel this world was, but once father died and we continued not to have food or money, I realized that for me there would never be anyone by my side but Little Tommy, and I guess I eventually accepted that I would always be alone.  
…  
Once the two returned with Sam's wings we took off for the Agent Natasha and Steve knew had sent the missile, and getting him into the car was easy enough, as we were going with Steve's leadership skills and Natasha's spy know-how. After enough pressing, I convinced them that I could do my part, so while Sam conversed with the Agent over the phone, raising his glass of what he told me was orange juice, I put the dot of the red laser on his dark tie as Steve drove the car with Natasha as his backup.  
Once on top of the roof I observed from the wall near the door, the case holding the rifle at my feet as Steve turned the man's – Agent Sitwell's – interrogation over to Natasha. With my slightly enhanced sight I was easily able to see the blood drain from his face the moment before she pushed him, smirking as the two proceeded to have a normal conversation as the man screamed to his death, or so he thought.  
I listened as Sitwell's screams got progressively louder and admired Sam's wings as he flew up past us. It's the first time I'd ever seen anything so beautiful, and if I were a normal person I knew I would have felt a stab of envy, but I was satisfied to watch as Sam dropped Sitwell on the roof and landed in front of me, smirking at me slightly before turning while he folded them up.  
After that Sitwell poured his secrets out, mentioning how he would be killed now, then stating that he was helping someone kill millions. Jerk. I couldn't help but liken him to the eggs Sam had broken just this morning for the omelets, though, despite my dislike for him. Just like the eggs, we broke Sitwell and he poured out all of his secrets. Poor guy; we broke him like an egg.  
Now, I was currently sitting in the back between Natasha and Sitwell as they calmly discussed his fate. Then there was a loud thud on the roof. Before any of us could even register what was going on, there was a flash of silver, and Sitwell was thrown mid-sentence out of the now broken window right into the path of a semi.  
I knew what was next, as the drill was familiar to me, and I was already folding up in my seat when Natasha's hand yanked my head down on her way up to the front, and I couldn't help but feel thankful for her having thought of me, even at the gross feeling I had in my gut at watching Sitwell killed. At least it was quick.  
Bullets were shot through the roof and went into the seats where our heads would have been, like we expected, and the car was yanked to a stop, catching me off guard as I banged my recently recovered head against the hard divider in the front middle.  
I heard as whoever it was on top of the worse-for-wear borrowed car was thrown off, looking up in time to see the man pull his metal fingers out of the road after having used them to catch and stop his fall. My blood chilled, and I knew we were in for a tough fight.  
In front of us was now standing the Winter Soldier.  
I watched as Natasha aimed her gun, but I knew it wouldn't do anything to him – not that small of a gun, anyway – but didn't have to worry about telling her that as the car bashing us from behind and forcing us closer to Winter Soldier very rudely cut me off. As I watched the assassin leap over the car, his boots breaking the rear window behind me, sending shards of glass everywhere, and watched as Sam tried in vain to get control of the car before the Winter Soldier pulled the steering wheel off, I wondered when I should break it to Steve that the owners of this car weren't getting it back, either.  
Any hope of controlling the car was gone, and the car continued in its own direction, banging into other cars and the divider, and the man who was once again on top of the car wisely left ours in favor of the one behind us, who rammed us from behind again, sending us careening into the opposite divider.  
I quickly mapped escape routes. The back two doors weren't ever going to work again, going out of the shattered back window was pretty much asking for the metal armed psycho to kill me, and when I turned my attention to the front I was glad to see Steve doing the same as I was.  
"Hold on!" He yelled, and I quickly scrambled over to them, gripping Sam as Steve threw us out of the car as it began to flip, using the door to break the fall. I yelped as I lost my grip on him, having to roll on the ground to slow my momentum, but came up relatively unharmed. I looked for the others, finding that Sam had lost his hold not long after I did and that both Steve and Natasha were okay. I let out a shaky breath, then turned quickly to look at the still-very-threatening threat. Who now had a bazooka. Great.  
"Watch out!" I called to the others as I threw myself out of the way, rolling to land behind the cover of a car. My concern for Steve as he was thrown off of the bridge by the bomb had to be put to the side as bullets began to rain on the car I was taking shelter behind. And it was about then that I realized I didn't have any weapons. I had known that the others would be reluctant to trust me with any weapons until they knew for sure that they could trust me, and they were already short on weapons for themselves, so I hadn't even thought of pushing them for one. Now I was beginning to regret that.  
Time to improvise.  
The car I was behind had bikes attached to the back, so, staying clear of the windows, I grabbed hold of the front tire of a purple one, thanked the awful serum for the added strength, and was able to rip the bike free with the aid of both the serum and the adrenaline pumping through my veins.  
With something in my hands, even if it was a bike, I was able to think clearer, and a plan quickly solidified in my head. Taking a quick breath, I took a few steps back, lowering my head further, raised the bike above me and threw it with all my might at where I could hardly see the men through the windows without my head getting blown off.  
I watched through the window as the rolling purple bike took two of them out, and while the others were distracted I yanked the side view mirror off of the car and jumped to the hood, then roof, launching myself at them with a rather odd cry before landing on one.  
On top of him, I bashed him in the head with the mirror, cracking it, before jumping behind the back of another when they began shooting again. The man I was behind was shot dead by his comrade, and I dropped the mirror to hold the body up as it absorbed a few more bullets, before launching it at the other man. Running past him pinned on the ground by the body, I kicked him sharply so he wouldn't get back up, then used my slightly enhanced speed to guess and dodge the path of the last man's bullets, before bringing my fist to his temple, feeling satisfied as something crunched and he collapsed.  
Having taken care of the immediate threat I quickly scooped up whatever weapons I could, tucking guns into my waistband, knives into my shoes, and keeping a pistol ready in my hands, I then turned my attention to the others. I couldn't find Sam, but the sound of shooting helped me spot Natasha, and I watched as further down the freeway she was thrown off of the bridge by a bomb as well.  
"No!" I knew Steve could survive the blast and the fall, but Natasha didn't have any serum running through her veins. If she didn't get caught in the blast, the chances of her coming out of that fall were little to none. I dashed to the other end of the freeway, leaping over the divider and hoping the Hydra agents didn't notice me as I leaned over the edge, looking for either the charred remains of Natasha or her mangled body. I was surprised to see neither, and was briefly confused on where she could be otherwise.  
My question was answered by gun shots sounding and the faint crack of glass. I whipped my head around to see Winter Soldier retreat quickly from the bullets to crouch in the shelter of the wall. I watched as he slowly raised his hand and lifted goggles with a cracked lens off of his face, and I immediately knew who had done it. Uh-oh. Natasha had made the Winter Soldier angry, and now she was going to die.  
He stood up abruptly and began firing his machine gun without aiming – angry; annoyed – and I hoped Natasha had the sense to get out of the way. She did, and I watched as bullets began being shot at him once again. Relief rushed through me as the others joined the man in shooting at her, and I knew she was retreating.  
Run, I thought. Run!  
There's no way she could outrun him, though, and I knew it. If she was going to stand a chance the Winter Soldier needed to be stalled.  
My ears picked up his words, even from such a far distance, and though my Russian was a little scratchy I understood. He was going after Natasha, and I needed to buy her some time.  
The soldier launched himself over the roof, a car window shattering as he landed, and I scanned the bridge one more time for Sam. Not seeing him, I silently hoped that he was okay, and launched myself over as well, rolling when I came into contact with the ground so as to protect my legs.  
I spotted the soldier walking with large strides in the direction I guessed Natasha had gone, him already being across the street, and I discreetly followed him as he continued; we needed to get away from the other agents, or I wouldn't be able to hold the soldier off for long.  
The sound of bullets being fired faded behind us and all civilians in the immediate vicinity had all left, so I saw my opportunity.  
I knew that the odds were not in my favor – I had trained with him many times in the past. But because I had trained with him I knew his strategies. He had weight and strength that surpassed my own, but I had the advantage of being small and quick. Plus, I remembered all of our previous training sessions, while I knew he had likely already been forced to forget, so he may have strength and weight on me, but I had knowledge on him.  
I watched him fire a bomb at a police car, blowing it up as he calmly reloaded it. It might be good to get that away from him, but more than anything right now, I needed to get him to stop walking, and the best way to distract a male is to challenge him.  
"Hey!" I called, once I was a suitable distance from him. This way, he couldn't take me by surprise with his speed. He turned almost lazily, and I quickly scanned him to assess what weapons he had, as I knew he was doing with me.  
Guns, knives, most definitely things that I couldn't see – as his suit was built not only for protection, but to hold a butt load of weapons – and, of course, his metal arm. Once I was finished I brought my eyes up to meet his uncovered ones, steeling my gaze. After a moment he dropped the bazooka since that did best against large targets – thankfully it didn't discharge when it hit the ground – and his arm raised with the pistol strapped to his leg. Challenge accepted.  
I knew he wouldn't hesitate to shoot first, and I also knew he would aim for my head and then my heart, so I tucked and rolled, so to speak, as the two shots went off, then I dashed toward him, raising my own pistol to take a few shots, which he dodged with his metal arm causing the bullets to ricochet into windows and cars. Now let's take a look at my mental checklist:  
1) Make him stop. Done.  
2) Stall him for as long as possible without dying. This one was going to be a bit more difficult.  
3) Break it to Steve about the car.  
4) Take a moment to appreciate life and drink some more orange juice.  
Meanwhile, I continued to dodge him, jumping behind a car to avoid bullets and send some of my own, but I knew it was only a matter of time before we engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and that's most definitely when my time stalling would be up, so as he walked toward me, I continued to dodge from car to car, trying to get further away from him. It's a good thing he'd left the bazooka behind.  
Apparently he noticed my strategy, and got annoyed, because suddenly he was holding the trigger on the machine gun that was once strapped to his back, bullets raining down on the car I was behind, and there was no way I was making it behind another car without getting a chest full of lead.  
It's now or never, then. When the bullets stopped briefly as he switched the empty magazine for a new one, I darted out of my cover and raced toward him. This surprised him, since he wasn't expecting a forward attack, and his hands were empty of a close combat weapon by the time I got there with my stolen knife. He quickly dropped his machine gun, the gun firing a few bullets into a nearby jewelry store window, sending more alarms off to join the ruckus, but I ignored that as I reached him, slashing quickly at his chest and flesh arm in quick succession, most being blocked by the metal arm as he backed up to escape the knife, but I finally felt it rip through clothes and bite into his flesh just above his stomach, and I jumped away quickly as his metal arm snapped forward to grab me.  
We stood there for a second, him sizing me up again as he took in new information on my fighting style, and myself trying to calculate how long the cut on his stomach would delay him with his healing, which was much further enhanced than my own. Knowing this, I knew it was vital that I not get injured more than him, because he'd always heal faster and regain that strength before I would regain my own.  
He finished his assessment and was the first to attack again, as I knew he would, and I dodged to the side as a bullet whizzed past where my head had been, but instead of flattering him and engaging in the game of hide-and-seek once again, like I knew he was trying to trick me to do (as he obviously had a trap planned this time) I pulled out a knife and flung it at his legs, causing him to have to jump back, where my bullet was now on a course for his own head, but he bent his body backwards, the bullet barely breezing past his face, and then he was charging at me with his own knife.  
I remember the first time I'd trained with Winter Soldier with knives, and I'd never seen anything so quick and fluid, graceful and almost instinctual as when he fought with a knife, and the many scars on my limbs attest to his skill. It was obvious that he'd been being trained with knives for a long time. But that was long before I had escaped HYDRA, and I'd improved since that first session where he'd chopped me up.  
Now is when my speed and small form would be my most useful tool in surviving, especially since he was now both angry and frustrated, which was never a good combination on him. So I braced myself as he made his first swing, which I easily ducked under and made a swipe for his leg as I darted behind him, crouching, which he dodged as well, having to bend down to reach my small form, but by then I had sent the knife at him again, raising to my full height to throw him off.  
We continued this deadly dance for who knows how long, but I hoped it was long enough for Natasha to develop a strategy. Then, in our knife dance, I finally slipped up. We had both landed plenty decent blows on each other, both of us sporting our own lines dripping blood, but he finally got fed up with my dance, and began to get dodgy. He feigned left, first, catching me off guard as he easy caught up to me as I fell for his trick. Next, he quickly grabbed me with his stronger, more formidable, left arm and threw me to the ground. About fifteen feet away from where we had been, though, and I felt blood begin to pool after my head cracked down on the curb. I couldn't move after that, very slowly regaining control over my limbs in my dazed state, but by the time I could it was too late. He was on top of me, the cold pain of steel piercing my shoulder – not my heart since I'd had the sense to roll away as his arm came down – and before he could attempt to kill me again I had raised my leg and shoved my knee into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. He quickly released his hold on the knife and backed away very slightly to recover, hoping to avoid being kicked again, but it was all the opening I needed.  
With my newly regained control of my limbs I thrust myself up the curb with my arms – my should crying in agony, with the knife still embedded in it – and threw my leg out once again, my foot connecting with his face and snapping it back. Before he could recover from that I moved myself out from under him completely and raced down one of the streets.  
Bullets were sent my way, one grazing the side of my calf, but I came to an alley and quickly went for cover inside. The bullets stopped, but I doubted he was continuing after me: I wasn't his concern right now, he was going after Natasha. After a quick peek around the brick wall of a building I didn't see him anywhere in sight, so I allowed myself a loud groan as I slid down to sit.  
I wouldn't be of very much use until the knife was out of my shoulder, so I gripped the handle, shut my eyes with a tightly clenched jaw, and yanked it out. A low groan escaped my clenched teeth and I pushed my head up against the wall, reminding myself that I've endured worse, before slowly navigating my arms out of the sleeves of my light sweater, bunching it up and pressing it against the wound.  
I allowed myself five seconds to rest, and then pushed myself up again. I needed to find Steve and tell him to go help Natasha, because he's the only one who would have a fighting chance against the mental armed assassin. Fortunately, help found me in the form of a winged man randomly dropping from the sky.  
"Sam!" I said, before he could say anything. "The Winter Soldier is heading for Natasha and I need help finding Steve because he's the only one who stands a chance against him." He quickly took in my injuries before grabbing my good shoulder.  
"May, you need to find a safe place and lay low. Steve's already on his way to Natasha, so don't worry." I couldn't not worry, though, and I wouldn't try until we had all made it out of this alive. "Are you safe on your own? Or should I stay?" He was worried that there were more gunmen, but I quickly shook my head.  
"You need to go help them, too. I'll catch up." At his look I huffed a breath. "I'll walk slow. Go!" He shot me one more look and then his wings burst out and he took off, and, true to my word, I started walking to where I could now faintly hear the sound of fighting. Probably a half-mile or so ahead.  
I quickly sent up a small prayer to the God I hadn't spoken to in decades to please keep them safe, and even though I wasn't entirely sure if my word still mattered to Him, I did it anyway, because I'm pretty sure I could consider these people friends, and I didn't want to lose my first friends since before I was captured by HYDRA.  
As I passed where I'd first challenged the soldier I looked at where the bazooka had been previously and felt a sense of dread that he had felt the need to take it with him on his hunt for Natasha, and as I listened to the fight going on between two strong individuals, obviously male, I hoped she was still alive.  
By the time I had made it to where the fighting was I could see the signs of an intense fight. Further ahead there was a loud screech and I watched as a knife was pulled through the metal wall of a van by the Winter Soldier, Steve having barely avoided it, and watched the fight continue until Steve somehow managed to launch the soldier over his back.  
Something black fell to the ground and it took a moment for my hazy mind to realize it was the mask he had been wearing. He quickly stood, then turned to face us, and though his uncovered face wasn't unfamiliar to me, it was obvious the others hadn't ever seen him before.  
He turned to glare at Steve for a moment – as his cover is never taken off during missions, from what I'd heard in the past – and I heard Steve pant for a moment before straightening himself.  
"Bucky?" What's a bucky?  
"Who the hell is Bucky?" Apparently I wasn't the only person in the dark. Then the soldier had pulled up another gun, aimed at Steve, and that was the opportune moment for Sam to make his appearance, knocking him off of his feet and into the air, but he got up once again with a terribly confused and lost look on his face before raising the gun again. Then one of his own bombs were shot at him past Steve and I snapped my head toward where it had come from. Natasha! She was leaning against a car, so she was hurt, but she was alive. And then the Winter Soldier was gone.  
I let myself stop worrying, because he was gone and we were all alive, but apparently we weren't finished. Steve seemed to have gone into shock, or something, because as cars screeched to a stop around us with people jumping out and surrounding us – guns trained on us - we were suddenly on our knees with our hands behind our heads waiting to die, and Steve wasn't doing anything about it. I listened as a helicopter sounded above us - likely for the news - and Rumlow – the filthy traitor – called them off, instead loading us all into a van.  
So either Steve needed to snap back into Captain mode, or we were all going to die, and I couldn't do that because I was just learning how to live again.  
But the doors slammed shut behind us and the car took off, and our chances of getting away continued to plummet as I looked at Steve in concern, wondering what had happened to my friend.


	12. If They Deserve To Be Free

Chapter 12  
If They Deserve To Be Free  
(Why Don’t I?)  
Bucky’s POV  
Screaming. As unconsciousness left me it took me a moment to figure out that it wasn’t my own screaming but someone else’s. The sound was muffled from walls and likely a decent distance, but after a moment I was able to identify it as a female’s. A shiver ran through me as my body fought to get rid of the chill left behind from the ice I had just been released from, and I felt the inevitable shiver down my spine at the thought of what always follows the ice, only this shiver was from fear, not cold.  
Not long after I woke up the screaming stopped, then two men opened the door of the room I was locked in – both with machine guns – and they escorted me to the room with the chair. As we approached, a girl looking to be in her late teens was half-dragged from the room and I identified her as the source of the screaming.   
I was surprised when she lifted her head to look at me, having assumed she was unconscious, and our gazes met. I held it as I was trained to do, as looking away would’ve sent the vague message of weakness, but as we got closer in the large hall I was able to see her eyes more clearly, and the pain and hopelessness contained in them had my heart clenching and a shudder wracking through my body. I forced my gaze away from her as we passed.  
One of the guards behind me chuckled, having seen my reaction to the girl.  
“Don’t worry, Soldier. She’s on her way to cryo so you don’t have to worry about her.” After hearing that my eyebrows pulled together in a slight frown as I remembered what some of the more chatty scientists had explained to me on the occasions I was taken out of cryo. They had explained that I was wiped after cryo instead of before so that my brain would be more accepting of the chair and more precise in the memories taken, in turn causing less pain since less of the brain was touched by the electricity.  
Then why was the girl wiped and then frozen? Did they not care if necessary information was taken from her mind on accident, or that it caused her more pain?  
These thoughts were driven from my mind, though, when I was strapped down and faced with the torture myself, and once I was released again all memories of the girl with hopeless eyes were gone.  
…   
The ride back was silent, no one said a word. That was normal, though: whenever I’m around people always seem to shut their mouths out of fear I’ll shut it for them. I eyed the man sitting across from me, watching as he squirmed under my gaze since I no longer had any goggles to hide my eyes.   
Their fear that I would hurt them was irrational, though, because they should already have been informed that I don’t do anything I’m not ordered to do.  
The quiet in the vehicle, interrupted only by the slight hum of the motor and the wind rushing past the windows, wasn’t echoed in my head, though. My gaze flickered down from the man across from me for a second as a picture formed in my head of a scrawny blonde man with a black eye and a sheepish grin, but the image was gone before I could capture it in my mind.  
The man from the street fight flickered through my mind briefly. Bucky… The name struck something inside me, and I felt a twinge of frustration as I strained to grasp onto whatever it was tickling the back of my mind, but it always seemed to slip right out of my fingers as soon as I almost had it.  
I continued to eye the man across from me, simply because I didn’t see the point in looking anywhere else, and felt the shadow of amusement when the car began to slow as we reached our destination and then man looked ready to dart out before the car came to a stop, finally arriving after many hours.  
As soon as the car pulled to a complete stop outside of the building to drop us off the man was out of his seat, pulling the door open and jumped out. I watched him go lazily, wondering vaguely what they would do if I did decide to attack them without orders to do so. The thought was quickly dismissed as I was escorted back to the debriefing room.  
Habit set into me once we reached the dimly lit room with the chair in it and I stripped off the suit until my chest was bare, exposing my full arm, and took a seat on the awful chair. As always, a man approached my prosthetic and began repairing the damage done to it. The man with the shield flickered to my mind again as I remembered how he damaged my arm.  
I’d never met anyone as strong as me before, and the man repairing my arm didn’t show it, but I was able to read from his subtle movements that he was surprised: never before had my arm been damaged this much by another person. Once again there was a tickle at the back of my mind, and to divert my mind from the frustration of trying to grasp it I instead turned my mind to the woman l had fought with as well.  
Though to a lesser extent, the woman tugged at something in my mind as well, but the bother was small enough that I could ignore it somewhat. I remembered how she always danced out of the way of my knife as if she knew my movements before even I did. I remembered how I had shoved my knife through her shoulder, and suddenly another image passed through my mind of a younger version of the same girl clutching at a large gash in her arm. I watched as she was yelled at by one of the scientists before he slapped her hard enough to knock her head to the side.  
I twitched slightly in surprise and the man working on my arm gave me a disapproving look – not daring to actually say anything – before going back to his work. I tried to ground myself, trying to block off the images from my mind, and it worked for a while.  
I had just begun to relax from my tensed position when another set of images hit my mind, but these were more vivid, and suddenly I saw a man leaning over me. “Seargent Barnes.” And I jerked up in my seat again, much to the chagrin of the scientist at my arm, but then there was the man from the bridge and I was falling “Bucky!” He yelled, reaching for me. Then suddenly I was being dragged on snow, looking down at the stump that was once my arm and was now leaving a trail of red in the snow. “The procedure has already been started,” I heard vaguely in my mind as I watched the uneven end of the stump cut off cleanly, and then my flesh arm was accompanied by a metal arm.  
I remembered grabbing the man’s throat, then the first man was there again, with glasses and a content yet evil smile “You are to be the new face of HYDRA. Put him on ice” and suddenly I was being frozen.  
I abruptly sat up and threw my arm to the side where it connected to the scientist repairing my arm and he flew across the room, the fear I felt with the images coursing through my blood.  
The men who had escorted me in raised their guns along with a few more that had already been stationed in here, and I sat back down in the seat vaguely aware as a few left the room, probably to get backup, but my immediate surroundings weren’t what I was seeing anymore. Images filled my head, some accompanied by sounds and vague smells, and I watched as I punched a man standing in dim alley, then turned to the scrawny guy I had seen before and felt shocked when I realized that this small man had the face of the man on the train, who I had just fought – the man who was just as strong, if not stronger, than me.  
The images changed after a second and I saw myself in on the mat in one of the gyms I usually trained in, then looked at the person I was fighting. It was the girl from earlier, and it took me a second to realize we were both sporting a bloody nose.  
“Again,” came a voice from further away, and I looked over at a man looking at our weary forms without sympathy, arms crossed in front of him. I looked at the girl again and watched as she rose from her slight crouch. Her breath came out in slight gasps and I could see the weariness in her just as I felt it in myself from the memory. It was the weariness I felt after hours of working out without pause.  
Finally she got into her fighting stance and I watched as my flesh arm flashed out without warning and grabbed her arm in a steel grip, twisting it behind her and pulling up until there was a loud pop and she let out a quiet sound of agony before maneuvering herself so she could kick my stomach and get free.  
Finally the barred door opened and Pierce walked in, motioning for the men to drop the guns. He stood across from me.  
“Mission report,” he said, but it was muffled against the images and sounds flashing through my head.  
“Mission report now.” After a moment there was a sharp sting on my face, throwing my head to the side as my thoughts finally calmed somewhat. I looked up at Pierce, feeling the tickle at the back of my mind once again.  
“The man on the bridge.” An image of the man flashed through my mind as the name he had said touched parts of my mind long untouched. “Who was he?” Pierce sighed from his position crouched in front of me to bring us to eye level.  
“You met him earlier this week on an earlier assignment.” I remembered that – running across the roof as a window shattered behind me and a shield was hurled through the air. “I knew him.” Pierce leaned over and grabbed the stool the scientist had been sitting on before moving it closer and sitting down.  
“Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. And tomorrow we’re going to give it a push. But, if you don’t do your part I can’t do mine and HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.” And suddenly I wondered, what about my freedom? I frowned as foreign emotions flickered through me.  
“But I knew him.” Pierce sighed again and seemed to war with himself about something. Finally, he stood up.  
“Prep him.”  
“He’s been out of cryofreeze too long.”  
“Then wipe him and start over.” I knew what that meant. It meant that they weren’t going to be careful in taking only expendable memories – they were going to give the machine a time frame and let it take whatever it wanted, leaving only muscle memory from any vital things it had taken. I also knew, somehow, that it would be more painful since I had been out of cryo for so long and suddenly I remembered the hopeless eyes of a young girl as she returned from such treatment. I took the mouth guard and was brought to lean back against the chair, restraints clasping down on my arms as my breathing quickened in fear and anticipation.  
…  
As Pierce and Rumlow walked away they began talking, the screams fading as they got further away and put more distance between them.  
“Why were we not aware that the asset was travelling with Mr. Rogers?” Pierce asked the man beside him.   
“No one knew where she had gone after she escaped, sir.”  
“Do you know what could have happened if the soldier realized who either of them were before returning here? Our best weapon could have been lost because you slacked on the job!”  
“Sir, I was only combat for this mission, I didn’t do recon.”  
“Then find who did and get rid of him.”  
“Sir.” The man nodded and walked away quickly, glad that he was still alive.  
Pierce continued walking until he reached his office where his computer screens were filled with pictures and information on the second asset HYDRA had ever had.  
He gazed at them for a minute, sifting through information before he moved his eyes to look at the video of her training against the asset long ago.  
The Soldier’s main priority here on out was ending Captain America, but perhaps while he was at it he could return a special weapon back to HYDRA.  
A cold smile formed on his face as he watched as the girl – bloody nosed and with an arm pulled out of the socket, clearly exhausted after having been training for hours – launched herself at the taller man and quickly attacked him in a series of movements that sent him to the floor.


	13. It's Impossible

Chapter 13  
It’s Impossible  
(Isn’t Always The Truth)  
In the months following my runaway from Uncle George my mind rarely let me rest. Visions of Little Tommy’s death plagued me until I was hardly getting any sleep, couldn’t eat, could hardly even walk and protect myself. I hoped – wished – with all my heart that it was all a horrible dream and that I would wake up soon. I wished I would wake up to see the sky still dark with night before the sun rose so I could get Little Tommy and myself ready for the day. I wished that I would be able to send him off to school with a kiss to the forehead before he clung to me and begged me not to go.  
But it wasn’t a dream. My Little Tommy was dead, and it was impossible for dead people to be alive. So I spent weeks, months, in a blur of denial, seeing Little Tommy’s blood streaked across the floor every time I closed my eyes, conjuring up horrible ways he could have died every time I slept.  
Then, on one of these days spent in a surreal setting after a particularly hard night I stumbled across him. A little boy, curled up in the corner of an alley gasping for breath. My eyes immediately cleared and I was able to see the messy brown hair just like Little Tommy’s. So I healed him. As I myself gasped for breath with the boy’s illness I watched him get up, give me an odd look, and go on his way, and for the first time in too long I felt alive again, because even though it was impossible for Little Tommy to be alive, I had made sure that someone else would live to see another day.  
…  
The car rattled along the road, the only thing that broke the silence, and I was left to my thoughts. As always, Soldier hadn’t recognized me and that wasn’t surprising at all. What was surprising, though, was that he had seemed to recognize Steve. My eyes darted up to the super soldier who was now looking at his very restrained hands and had receded into his mind. I looked down at my own restrained hands and grit my teeth as my shoulder flared up. Though blood was still flowing from my wound sluggishly it had already begun clotting thanks to my slightly enhanced healing. I worried for Natasha, though, since her bullet wound was still bleeding freely. The need to get up and heal her was overwhelming, but I couldn’t without upsetting the guards who sat near us like rocks.  
“It was him.” Steve’s voice shocked me out of my thoughts and my eyes snapped up to him immediately. He was still looking down at his hands and my heart broke at the well-hidden pain in his voice even though I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.  
“He looked right at me, and he didn’t even know me.”  
“How is that even possible? It was like 70 years ago.”  
“Zola.” The name sent a shiver down my spine but I hid it well. “Bucky’s whole unit was captured in ‘43 and Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did must’ve helped him survive the fall. They must’ve found him.”  
“None of that’s your fault, Steve,” Natasha said, sounding faint as her gaze slowly focused and unfocused. Amid my concern for Natasha was also confusion at the word bucky again, which was beginning to sound less like a what but a who.  
“What’s a bucky?” I asked quickly before anyone could say anything else. Sam, who was across from me, gave me an odd look before a mischievous glint formed in his eyes.  
“A bucky,” he began sarcastically, “Is a best friend, typically named James but can be called other things, who is the best friends of a superhero and has no clue what’s going on with their superhero best friend.” [Thanks artemis7448] I blinked, wondering if his answer was supposed to make me more confused than I already was.  
“What he meant,” Steve said, shooting Sam a look, “is that Bucky’s my best friend.” He looked away. “Even when I had nothing I had Bucky.”  
More blood dripped from the hole in Natasha’s jacket and her head went back slightly against the pain.  
“We need to get a doctor in here. If we don’t put pressure on that wound she’s gonna bleed out here in the truck –“ Sam was rudely cut off as one of the guards lifted an electric rod, holding it at him in an unspoken threat to stop talking. The other guard looked up briefly at the commotion before relaxing again. Then we were all surprised as the electric rod was shoved at the other guard before he was kicked unconscious and the guard pulled the helmet off of his head – erm, her head – with a slight sound of pain.  
“That thing was squeezing my brain.” I watched as Agent Hill, who I had met what seemed like a lifetime ago, recomposed herself before giving Sam a blank look and turning to Steve.  
“Who’s this guy?”  
After that it was only a matter of escaping. As soon as my hands were free I went to Natasha, putting my hands on her shoulder. She wouldn’t allow me to heal her, though.  
“You’re already hurt,” she said as an explanation. Be that as it may, my wound wasn’t as bad as hers, plus my healing was faster. So I opted to do something I hadn’t ever done before.  
“Maybe I can heal it a bit, but not all the way. That way you won’t bleed so much.”  
“Maybe?” She asked. I hesitated again.  
“I’ve never actually done it before.” I put my hands on her shoulder again, taking her still form as consent, and envisioned myself taking her wound onto myself. Slowly, slowly, and I was able to withdraw my will once I felt she would only be losing an acceptable amount of blood. Both of my shoulders pounded now, the right from the stab, left from Natasha’s pain, but the added concentration of keeping my ability in such tight control, then forcing it to withdraw before it finished caused my head to pound with exhaustion and stress.  
With the immediate problem resolved I turned to the hole in the floor as Agent Hill began giving orders, Sam grabbing his wing pack from a corner – carefully maneuvering around the unconscious guard.  
“I’m assuming you all know how to survive jumping out of a moving car relatively unharmed.” We nodded. “Good. As soon as you’re out go as quick as you can to the nearest cover and wait there until I give the signal to come out.” With that she jumped out of the car, followed by Steve. With some pressing I convinced the other two to go first before I followed, making sure they both made it okay – Sam curled around his pack protectively and Natasha gripping her shoulder – then as I came out of my own roll I darted behind a large juniper shrub.  
Once Rumlow’s trucks were out of sight a black car pulled up to the side of the road near us. Agent Hill came out of hiding and the driver came out, the two conversed for a bit, and then Agent Hill motioned for us all to leave our spots as the driver reentered the car. We did and approached the truck as the side doors were opened.  
“Hurry, get in.” As the others loaded in I gave the driver a look through the window, determining if he was dangerous or not. Of course he was dangerous, as he was trained to be, but I needed to know if he was dangerous to me and my friends. The man returned my look and after a second I looked away and followed the others in. Not HYDRA.  
As soon as the doors shut we were speeding off in the opposite direction, going a while before taking a turn as we put more distance between us and HYDRA. Sam had taken a rag offered by Agent Hill and was applying pressure to Natasha’s wound, which, though considerably better, was still bleeding.  
“How long until we stop?” I asked Agent Hill after a few minutes of silence. I figured it didn’t much matter where she was bringing us, since she had just saved our hides.  
“Little over an hour,” she answered over her shoulder from the front passenger seat. So I took off my sweater slowly past the pain in both shoulders, bunched it up so that the blood wouldn’t make any messes and pulled my legs up so I could lay against my knees to sleep.  
I woke up as the car began slowing to a more reasonable speed and peered out of the window to try and figure out where we were going. There were a lot of trees and that was about it. The pounding in my head had faded to a dull ache that I could easily ignore though my shoulders still hurt. I peered down at my bloody shoulder and was relieved to see that the blood had finally clotted completely. Taking a glance up at Natasha I saw that she was just waking up as well, the blood having slowed even further, but there was a sickly shade to her skin that warned us to get her to a doctor quickly.   
The car finally stopped and we exited to see the large wall of what looked to be a dam. Agent Hill led us quickly to a barred door with an unlocked chain dangling from it. I eyed it warily; they must be expecting us.  
Not long after we entered the long, dimly lit tunnel my suspicions were proven correct as a man rushed to us offering medical assistance.  
“She’ll want to see him first.” My mind immediately began reeling with different ideas on who she had meant in her cryptic reply, and if I weren’t already sure Agent Hill wasn’t part of HYDRA I would’ve bolted out with the fear that she was leading us to Pierce, but seeing as that wasn’t the case the next likely answer was, well, unlikely. Not to mention highly impossible.  
We walked into a room separated from another with plastic curtains and were faced with the unhealthy form of The Director. Apparently this guy didn’t know the definition of impossible.  
“It’s about damn time.” And everyone came to the same conclusion as I had.


	14. I'm Ready

Chapter 14  
I’m Ready  
(Are You?)  
Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t let my cover slip and been captured by HYDRA. Perhaps I would’ve gotten off of the streets someday, gone back to school and met a nice guy who I would marry and start a family with. That’s what I’d have liked to happen, at least, but sometimes I wonder if I was better off getting captured by HYDRA, because I may never have gotten off of the streets. I could have wallowed in my despair over Little Tommy for the rest of my life, or if I did ever get past him I might never have gotten myself back off of the streets. Then, when I got away from HYDRA, I found a sick irony in that I had found myself back on the streets, returned to the place I had been taken from so many years ago. And yet, no matter what life made it seem like, I couldn’t help but feel that I was meant for something more than being a street urchin all my life, and that gave me hope.  
…  
While The Director, who was also apparently called Director Fury, explained to all of us why we hadn’t been trusted with knowing he was alive earlier – a slightly twinge of betrayal nudging my mind from Natasha’s – I had to nearly restrain myself from healing him from his many wounds as I had been trained to do for so many years. Finally, when he finished talking I was able to make my way to him, hesitantly raising my hands toward is injuries in an unspoken question.  
“As much as I’m grateful, No One, I have to decline on the account that at the moment you’re more needed than I am.” A warm feeling grew in my chest which I couldn’t identify when he said that I was needed, and before I knew it I had opened my mouth.  
“May,” I told him. He raised an eyebrow slightly so I clarified. “My name’s May.” I wondered for a second if I was supposed to tell him to call me May or if he’d understand that himself when he spared me the internal debate.  
“Alright May. I assume you’re planning on going with Captain Rogers to reprogram the helicarriers, or are you not?” It wasn’t even a question. I was needed, and so I was going to help. I nodded my head once in affirmation and he seemed content with that as he turned to the doctor as he finished patching Natasha up. The man went over to The Director, helping him to get out of the bed and into a chair in front of a table with folders and a large black briefcase on it.  
Once he was seated the doctor draped a sweater over him and then took his leave. Reaching over to one of the folders he opened it and withdrew a black and white picture of a familiar man.  
“Alexander Pierce,” he said, gazing at the picture. “This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said: “Peace wasn’t an achievement. It’s a responsibility.”” He paused for a second and then leaned forward, dropping the picture. “See, it’s stuff like this that gives me trust issues.”  
“We have to stop the launch,” Natasha said, ignoring Fury as she was still annoyed and hurt by his lack of trust in her.  
“I don’t think the council’s accepting my calls anymore.” And that’s where the large briefcase came in. He turned it around to face us and then opened the lid, revealing three large blue chips.  
“What’s that?”  
“Once the helicarriers reach 3000 feet they’ll triangulate with satellites becoming fully weaponized.” That didn’t sound very good. I listened with the others as The Director – Director Fury? – and Agent Hill explained the plan of reprogramming the helicarriers before they killed a whole ton of people.  
“Then maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what’s left,” Fury finished.  
“We’re not salvaging anything.” My eyes snapped over to Steve. Whoa, he can raise his voice, too. “We’re not just taking down the carriers, we’re taking down SHIELD.”  
“SHIELD had nothing to do with this.”  
“You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD’s been compromised, you said it yourself. HYDRA grew under your nose and nobody noticed.”  
“Why do you think we’re hiding in this cave? I noticed.” Steve went back to the calm voice he usually took when angry, but that didn’t make him seem any less imposing.  
“How many payed the price before you did.” It wasn’t a question. Something seemed to strike The Director and suddenly he looked uncomfortable, sliding looks around at the people in the room.  
“I didn’t know about Barnes,” he said, not making eye contact with Steve, and although I had no idea what he mean when he brought up barns, I got the feeling it meant more to Steve then it did to me.  
“Even if you had, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that, too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes.”  
“He’s right,” Agent Hill spoke up softly, drawing The Director’s eyes. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about, but I got the gist: The Director was keeping secrets, and that led to bad things. And although The Director hadn’t wronged me in any way to make me wary of him, I don’t like secrets, and Steve’s never kept any secrets from me so far.  
“I’m with Steve,” I spoke. The Director’s eyes went then from me to Natasha, who held his stare and leaned back in her chair, getting her opinion across clearly. Finally his gaze turned to the last one in the room, but by then it was obvious that The Director was on the losing end of this battle.  
“Don’t look at me,” Sam shrugged. “I do everything he does, just slower.” My lips twitched upward slightly at the man. We turned then to The Director who looked down and thought for a second.  
“Well,” he said, lifting his head and leaning back. “Looks like you’re giving the orders now, Captain.” And there was no one better for it.  
From there things were a flurry of preparing for battle and I couldn’t help the thrill that went through me on being out in the action again; it had been too long since I had practiced all the things HYDRA had trained me to do, and hardly had I ever used them to do good. I was excited to see what I could do, especially now that I wouldn’t be doing it to wreak havoc on the world.  
As I was given a bundle of clothes and a roll of bandages for the wound on my shoulder I observed the others on my team. Natasha and Steve were pulling together the strings of the plan, Natasha getting handed a bundle of blue professional looking clothes and a blonde wig before she left to get herself ready and I watched as Steve walked out of a door. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, though, and Sam followed slowly.  
As for myself, I didn’t have any idea where to go to get privacy, so I quickly caught up to Natasha and followed after her.  
“How are things looking?” I was referring to her part of the plan, which I didn’t know very much of.  
“Fine, fine. A few agents have gone to subdue a member of the world counsel so I can impersonate her and confront Pierce.” There was an evil gleam in her eye that made me think she was enjoying her role a little too much.  
“Won’t that turn out bad once this is over? She’s bound to be more than a little annoyed.” Natasha sent me one of her smirk smiles.  
“Fury’ll take care of that. Plus, once we’re done with the carriers she’ll be grateful that she wasn’t killed by the very thing she was helping get in the air. That’ll probably change her mind about a few things.” I couldn’t deny that her explanation made sense so I nodded as we reached some doors.  
“You can take any of them,” she said before walking into one herself. I warily walked into the one next to hers, slightly worried that it would already be occupied, but it opened to an empty room with a cot in the corner, a couple chairs, and a door leading to a small bathroom. That’ll do.  
After showering – graciously using the soap provided – I toweled try my thick brown shoulder-length hair, then, averted my gaze from the mirror to avoid seeing my scars in all their glory, wrapped my shoulder lightly to protect it somewhat from opening again, being careful with the water-logged scab. After that I got into my own leather suit like the one the Agents wore and put my old clothes in a neat pile.   
Putting my freshly brushed hair into a high ponytail, I left the room without my pile of clothes, figuring that if I survived this mess I’d come back for them later.   
After waiting for Natasha for a few minutes I finally knocked lightly on her door to make sure she was still in there.  
“Come in,” came her voice from inside. I blinked. Okay, then. I turned the knob and walked in, wondering what she needed from me. I relaxed slightly when I walked in and she was fully dressed; although back when I was with HYDRA there was no significance in one’s body and it was expected – normal – for me to strip down in the presence of others, in my time since escaping I had learned that it wasn’t normal for people to be without clothing in the presence of others.  
She was dressed in her professional blue clothes and was currently putting a little black thing on one of her molars. As soon as she finished she smirked at me through the mirror, pulling up a very thin and clear thing made out of an odd plastic fabric, or something.  
“This will change my appearance to that of the world counsel woman and that,” she said, motioning to the thing in her mouth, “will collaborate with this to make me sound like her.” I nodded to show I understood.  
“How does it know what she looks and sounds like, though?”  
“They’ve been programmed already.” She slipped the plastic thing on her face, then pulled a blonde wig over her red hair. “So all I have to do is –“ she reached up and pressed the point below her ear and her voice changed to that of a middle aged woman “- press this button to activate it.” I observed the blonde, middle-aged woman. Although I rationally knew the woman was Natasha it was hard to convince my eyes.  
“Surprised?” Said the woman in Natasha’s voice, lifting an eyebrow, and suddenly it was easier to convince myself that this wasn’t a stranger. I nodded slightly and her smirk deepened.  
“So this is how you’re going to get close to Pierce?” And suddenly her plan made a lot more sense. She nodded, abruptly looking uncomfortable.  
“I’m going to dump all of SHIELD’s secrets onto the web. And HYDRA’s.” I understood what she wasn’t saying: everything about me was going to be available to the world – everyone would know what I was capable of doing. “Are you ready for that?” And she seemed genuinely concerned. I looked down and thought about that. If everyone knew about my abilities, then there will likely be all sorts of people who want to find me to experiment on me like HYDRA did for all those years. I looked up at Natasha and saw the concern hidden in her eyes, and I knew that I wouldn’t be alone this time; I had people now who would protect me. So I gave her one of her own smirks and her concern turned to surprise.  
“Are you?” A small smile grew on her face, and even though it wasn’t Natasha’s face, it was definitely Natasha’s smile.  
“Let’s go.”  
As we reached the large room again, bustling with agents, Natasha was herded off by a few agents as they led her out of the building where they would make it look like she had just left an airport and I was brought to Sam and Steve, both in their own uniforms. My gaze lingered on Steve’s spangled uniform and I recognized it as the one he wore so long ago, the one he would appear in comics and shows in.  
Agent Hill led the three of us through the forest until we reached the building I was held in what seemed ages ago.   
Sneaking in was pathetically easy since Agent Hill was still thought to be loyal, so it was just the problem of staying out of sight until we got up to the communications room, where the super soldier easily intimidated everyone into complying. Then Steve whipped up some inspirational speech from the back of his head and I couldn’t help but be very extremely jealous.   
Here he was talking a bunch of people into risking their life to do what is right, and I can hardly hold up my end of a conversation.  
I felt like having a very out of character fit spurred on by jealousy but was able to force down the urge; irrational jealousy could come once the giant flying killer things were out of the air.  
Once Steve finished his awfully amazing jealousy invoking speech from the back of his head we hurried away to where the carriers were going to be taking off. Except they were taking off early.  
“They’re initiating launch,” came Agent Hill’s voice from the com in my ear. Oh, great. I ran through the plan in my head one more time: I was to stay with Steve while he reprogrammed the carriers, since HYDRA would be all too happy to get their hands on me again, and that meant I somehow had to keep up with a super soldier.  
“Hey Cap.” My eyes went to Sam for a second, who was running beside me. “How do we know the good guys from the bad guys?”  
“If they’re shooting at you they’re bad.” Sounded reasonable to me. Then we had reached the drop off and Sam grabbed me as his wings activated, dropping me off close to the carrier before taking to the air as Steve landed from his fall. I rolled to break my own fall, then followed after Steve as he dodged bullets.  
And we were on the helicarriers.


	15. The Winter Soldier

Chapter 15  
The Winter Soldier  
(Is Being A Pain. Again.)  
I’ve never really had any enemies. Back when I was still in school there was Prissy Lizzy, an obnoxious girl who thought the world was hers and everyone on it were simply annoyances, and in the mills there were all of the factory ‘masters’ who treated the workers horribly, even going so far as to give one of the children lashes with something that strongly resembled a jockey’s whip when she accidentally ruined a whole batch of clothes, but my first true enemy was my father, because he left my family when we needed him, and by leaving us he hurt us, and after that it was Uncle George, because he hurt me and Tommy.   
Since then I’ve had a lot of enemies.  
…  
I followed at a distance, staying out of sight as much as possible: I needed to stay out of sight – a secret weapon of sorts.  
“Hey Cap, I found those bad guys you were talking about.”  
“You okay?”  
“Not dead yet.” I looked up at the fireworks of explosions not far off, spotting the small winged form staying barely ahead of the bullets. I shot a man getting too close to Steve – who was fighting a few other men – with a clear shot to the head, ducking to stay out of sight as a few heads swiveled my way. So far luck was on Sam’s side, but I was all too aware how fast that luck could desert him when he needed it most.  
I heard the quick breaths of a few agents closing in on my spot and closed my eyes, focusing on pinpointing where they were exactly. One to my left, two to my right. My eyes opened and I quickly turned to my right, swiftly taking out the two before turning and kicking the other man in the face as he snuck up behind me, knocking him out as his head then hit the storage containers with a solid thump. My gaze shot to Steve who was quickly leaving me in the dust and I took off after him again. I didn’t have to try too hard to stay out of sight, thankfully, because all of their attention was on the star spangled super soldier ahead of me.  
Agent Hill’s and Sam’s voices sounded through the coms but I tuned them out as I took out another man that was getting too close to Steve and luckily no one noticed the man that dropped next to them as they were preoccupied with their own fight with Steve, so I was able to continue chasing after him.  
“Alright Cap, I’m in.” Steve picked up the pace, taking out agents as he ran, and it was all I could do to keep up with him without being seen. Even surrounded by enemies that guy is insanely fast.  
“Eight minutes Cap,” came Agent Hill’s voice.  
“Working on it.” So was I. I turned away for one second and he’s already way ahead of me again! I caught up to him as he made it through the door leading into the giant flying machine. It seemed that the majority of the agents had been stationed outside, because once we made it inside there were hardly any altercations. For me, at least; I was simply hanging out at Steve’s back as he knocked them all out cold.  
We reached a large glass dome on the bottom of the carrier and Steve switched one of the chips for the blue one given by The Director.  
“Alpha locked.” The machine thing closed and we turned around, running once again.  
“Falcon, where are you now?”  
“I had to take a detour!” I grew slightly alarmed at his tone, wondering if his luck had finally run out, and, taking a look at Steve, it seemed I wasn’t the only person worrying.  
“I’m in.” I let out a little breath of relief and ran faster as we made it through another door.  
“Two down, one to go.” The last is always the hardest, though, and I had no doubt this wouldn’t be an exception. We made it back onto the top of the carrier where we were faced with agents who seemed to have been waiting for us. I immediately separated from Steve, letting him do his thing, and began shooting my own portion of agents.  
Agent Hill’s voice came in through the com but I tuned her out as a bullet grazed my arm. Pulling another gun out of the holster on my leg I turned to the man and easily shot him through the eye, and he died so fast he probably didn’t even realize he was dead. A twinge went through me that I once would have recognized as guilt or remorse but now only pushed aside; this was not the first time I had killed, and I doubt it would be the last.  
“Hey Sam, I’m gonna need a ride,” came Steve’s voice as I punched the last one in the skull, knocking him out. Then more agents came through a different door with some pretty impressive guns, which were soon going to be aimed at us.   
“Roger. Let me know when you’re ready.” Steve sent me a look and I understood what he intended, though I didn’t have to like it, and I quickly ran at him and jumped up onto his back, holding on as an explosion went off just behind us and he jumped off of the carrier.  
“I just did!” I let out a little scream, whether from exhilaration or fright I wasn’t exactly sure. All I knew was that from this day forward I hated heights. Steve maneuvered us in the air as Sam got closer to us and grabbed his arm as Sam came out of his dive. I winced at Sam’s cry, knowing it can’t be easy to be pulling a super soldier out of a fall (I didn’t even count myself since I was so small he probably didn’t even notice me), but his jetpack began to thrust harder and we shot up towards the final carrier, where Sam dropped us off. I immediately let go of Steve and stumbled to the nearest cargo thing to try and return my stomach to its proper place.   
“You know you’re a lot heavier than you look.”  
“I had a big breakfast.” I put my head down for another second, figuring I could catch up to them, but my head shot up when I heard another person join the party, and I watched as the Winter Soldier shoved Steve off of the carrier.  
“Steve!” Sam rushed after him, only to be caught by a wing and thrown back, where guns formed from his suit and he began firing bullets at the Soldier, who avoided them and went behind cover.   
I forced my stomach to calm down and began making my way closer to the two, trying to stay unseen to keep surprise on my side, and as soon as the Soldier was hidden Sam tried to make his way to Steve again, then I watched in horror as a hook latched to Sam’s wing, throwing him to the ground, then it got torn off. My shoulders slumped slightly; if Steve wasn’t already dead, he would be soon. There’s no way he could survive a fall that far, and Sam wouldn’t be coming to save him this time. In my grief I barely registered that Sam had been kicked off of the carrier as well, and once I did I nearly had to cover my mouth to keep from giving my position away. I’m supposed to be a secret weapon, I reminded myself, and I can’t do that if I can’t think straight. I immediately straightened my shoulders and took a deep breath. Sam and Steve were down, and now I was alone on the top of a helicarrier with the Winter Soldier. I ran through all the options on what to do, but Steve had the chip. I couldn’t do anything – I was stuck. I continued to run through options and finally decided that if I couldn’t stop the carrier as originally planned, perhaps I could stop it a different way. I looked around me at the large flying metal island and my confidence faded slightly. Even with all of the catching up HYDRA did with me on technology back when I was with them, I doubted very much that I could figure this thing out before it had already killed a ton of people.  
My eyes darted to the man with the metal arm who had pushed two of my friends to their deaths and my eyes narrowed. If I couldn’t take out the carriers, maybe I could do a different service to the world.   
Said soldier was just finishing up getting inventory on his weapons and I could see that his weapons greatly outnumbered my own, but he was close to the ledge. If I could get him over, then he wouldn’t be able to survive the drop. Just like Steve…  
With the new strategy in mind I began sneaking my way toward him with the full knowledge that I’d more than likely end up going over with him, but perhaps Zola had been right; maybe I am out of time.  
Then a voice I thought I’d never hear again came through the coms, and I stopped dead in my tracks: maybe there was still hope.   
“Cap, cap, come in. Are you okay?” If Sam’s still alive, then maybe…  
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m still on the helicarrier. Where are you?” Relief pumped through my veins and I retreated back to the shadows, letting my suicidal plan leave my mind. Steve’s okay, so there’s still hope for the original mission.  
“I’m grounded. The suit’s down. Sorry Cap.”  
“May?” Steve asked.  
“I think she’s still up there.”  
“Alright May, meet me at the dome.” I took off, the Soldier’s back still toward me, and breathed a sigh of relief when I made it into the carrier okay.   
“On my way,” I spoke into the com, safe from the ears of the Soldier.


	16. Falling

Chapter 16  
Falling  
(Is Inevitable)  
I’ve never been overly fond of heights. When I was young some of the boys and even a few of the braver girls would climb up to the roof of the school house when the teacher wasn’t looking, and I warned them that they would eventually fall and get hurt. I warned them that the teacher would tell their parents, and their parents would be mad, but they didn’t listen. Finally, one of the kids did fall, and he broke his left arm. He fell just like I said he would, and the teacher told his parents, and they were mad at him, just like I told him they would be. I knew it would happen, because in my mind everything that went up had to come down, just the same that I knew when things were good they’d eventually get bad.  
I’m not overly fond of heights, but I’m not scared of them either. I’m scared of the fall that comes after.  
…  
As I raced down the hall, going by memory from the last carrier, I heard the door leading into the carrier slam open. Thinking quickly, I turned down a hall and flattened myself against the door, hiding myself against the doorway ledge. Running steps raced past my hiding spot and I shot a look at whoever it was when I deemed it safe.  
“Steve, we’ve got company. Soldier headed down in front of me.” Steve didn’t answer, and I remembered his explanation on what a bucky was. Even though the Soldier was nothing but a weapon, Steve still saw him as a friend, and that could get him killed. With that thought I continued down toward the dome, but by the time I’d gotten there the two were already fighting.  
Steve had gotten the chips down and was currently fighting the Soldier, dodging and blocking the Soldier’s knife with his shield, and while they fought I quickly assessed the situation.  
Steve needed to switch the chip, but he couldn’t do that with the Soldier’s relentless attacks, so either I’d have to distract the Soldier, or get the chip from Steve somehow. I watched as Steve took a chip out from the rack and grabbed the other from the small leather pouch on his waist, but was unable to insert it as he was suddenly blocking a metal arm with his shield.  
Okay, one or the other, but I couldn’t just stand here anymore. I raced toward them just as the fell from the ledge, and once I reached them I looked down at the two men. Letting my eyes go a little further than them, I spotted the blue chip that must have fallen from Steve’s hand.  
They grappled some more and I launched myself over the safety gate and down onto the ledge they were fighting on, just as Steve was able to grab the chip again.   
Right when I jumped, though, the Soldier took a step back and I found myself right behind him. Perfect. I kicked the back of his knee, sending him down to a knee as I jumped out of his reach, pulling my gun up and shooting three quick bullets which he brought his arm up to block. Seeing that wouldn’t work, I pulled out my second gun as well, shooting at both his legs and his head. He slowly rose, dodging bullets, and I was able to keep him barely out of reaching distance.   
“May, stop!” Steve called from the bottom of the dome, and even though I knew he would protest against me trying to kill his friend, his voice surprised me enough that I hesitated for a second, which was all the Soldier needed to gain the upper hand. Suddenly he was right in fright of me and there was a stabbing pain in my side as he punched me hard enough to throw me down to the glass below, far from where Steve was. My head cracked painfully against the glass and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was now a gash in my head.  
I wanted to get back up, or groan, but my lungs wouldn’t take any air in. I lay, trying to breathe, and though I was vaguely aware of the throbbing pain in both my side and my head, and the sounds of Steve and the Soldier fighting once again, I continued to lay there. This wasn’t the first time I had been winded, and though it was still as awful to experience as it always was, I knew the quickest way to get past it was to lay still and keep trying to breathe, so I did.  
Air finally poured into my lungs and I gasped it in, coughing as I got back to my feet. The sound of the Soldier crying out in pain caught my attention and I turned to them, my eyes widening as I saw Steve choking his friend and enemy. Was he going to kill him?   
The Soldier went limp and he released something from his hand, letting it clatter to the floor and realization dawned on me: Steve hadn’t wanted to hurt the Soldier, but he forced Steve’s hand. I raced over to the Soldier as Steve began making his way back to the chips and when I reached him I knelt down and checked his vitals. Was it over? Was he dead?  
My blood chilled as I realized he was still alive, but it was too late. His eyes opened and his arm whipped up, clenching mine before I could pull it back. Without thinking I brought my foot up and stomped on his arm as hard as I could against the glass, forcing him to release my hand, and jumped back as he quickly got to his feet.  
“Steve, you need to hurry,” I said into the com, and before I knew it he had whipped out his gun…and shot Steve.  
“No!” The cry came out of my mouth without permission, but by then I had already launched myself at the Soldier so he couldn’t shoot any more. But that didn’t stop him from trying. I grabbed his arm, trying to force it behind his back, but he was holding the gun with his metal arm and simply shoved me away. He raised the gun to aim again, but just as his finger pulled the trigger I ran back at him and shoved his arm, causing him to miss Steve’s head as he continued to climb with a bullet hole in his thigh.  
“You bastard!” I screamed as I began raining punches at him. Yep, there’s my street language. It became a sort of dance – me sending punches and him blocking, him sending punches and me blocking. But I was getting tired. Where the bullet had grazed my arm earlier was throbbing, my side was throbbing, and my head was throbbing, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the Soldier got ahead of me.  
“Steve, hurry!” I said, ducking as a fist flew at my face, only to get a knee in my face instead. Something snapped and pain hit me as I jumped out of reach once again, a hand flying up to feel my nose. Definitely broken. The Soldier followed my retreat, though, and he was upon me, forcing me to the ground and raising his metal arm, no doubt to kill me. Fear dancing through my mind, I brought up my knee and got him where the sun doesn’t shine. His face paled considerably and I was able to kick him off, but he had already recovered.  
I felt hands on my back as he grabbed me, and once again I was flying through the air before smacking into the side of the dome. I groaned as everything began throbbing even worse, trying to get up, and then my heart stopped as another gunshot sounded.  
“Steve?” I said into the com, hoping beyond hope that he would answer. There was nothing and I shot a look up at him. He wasn’t moving. “Steve,” I breathed. And then he moved. He was forcing himself up, and I needed to distract the Soldier before he finished Steve off for good. Ignoring the pain in my body I got back up and raced at the soldier, not slowing down as I got to him, and jumped just as he turned to face me. Grabbing onto him, I used my momentum more than my weight to bring him to the ground, throwing punches at his face. He rolled and suddenly I was the one on bottom, watching as he brought his fist back. This time, instead of letting fear take control of me I moved my head to the side, the metal of his arm causing the glass beneath to from a small spider web of cracks, then I reached up with both hands to pull his hair as hard as I could. He moved slightly, trying to release the pressure, and I shimmied out from underneath him.  
“Charlie lock.” I didn’t have time to feel relief, though, as the Soldier and I had started up our dance again, and even though I was worse for the wear, so was he. I noticed that he was favoring his flesh arm now and figured Steve must have popped it out of the socket, and I took full advantage of that.   
“Alright, you guys need to get out of there.” Except both Steve and I knew that wasn’t an option right now. Even if we could somehow get past the Soldier, Steve wasn’t in good shape.  
“Fire now.” My eyebrows came down slightly as I punched the Soldier’s injured flesh shoulder as hard as I could, causing him to take a step back, but I wouldn’t let up on him.  
“But Steve –“  
“Do it! Do it now!”  
“Do it,” I agreed, taking a step away from the Soldier to take a quick breath. He seemed confused for a second, at who I was talking to, but seemed to shake away his confusion as he did his interest in me. I watched as he took off toward Steve, probably feeling annoyed at having been distracted from his target for so long, but I didn’t bother stopping him since I knew we were going down anyway.  
And then the world exploded. I watched as all around us giant bullets burst through the glass, destroying anything they could reach. My gaze shot up to Steve as he was jostled about and while looking up my gaze was caught by a large beam that was falling right toward the Soldier.  
As it fell it pinned him down, but what really caught my attention was that the top of the beam had gone straight through the glass, causing a gaping hole, and as bullets kept coming through the glass and explosions kept rocking the carrier, the glass shattered even further and before I even registered it there wasn’t anything separating me from the drop beneath, and I fell.


	17. Dealt A Bad Hand

Chapter 17  
Dealt A Bad Hand  
(Isn't Just Referring To Cards)  
Good-byes haven't ever been easy for me. Who are they easy for? Good-bye is the signal of a parting friend or a lost relationship. How do you express all the things you feel to a person you'll never see again in just two words? How do you convey the pain you'll suffer at a loved one's departure? Instead, I told them that I'd look forward to seeing them again, because saying good-bye was too hard; too permanent.  
…  
The cold of the water shocked me, and from the height I had fallen the surface of the water had turned hard, bruising my back. I lay there in shock for a while, mind reeling with what had just happened. Once again I had defied death, though while I floated further down into the water I wondered if that was a good thing. Maybe it would be easier to just give up; go to wherever it is that my family has been waiting for me for so long.  
Perhaps if I died now people would miss me. Maybe Natasha and Sam would remember me. My thoughts flashed to Steve and I suddenly remembered that he was still on the carrier as it was being blown out of the air with the Soldier still up there. And knowing Steve he'd probably try and talk him into peace, or something, and end up getting killed.  
New strength surged through my immobile limbs and I kicked up to the surface just as I was beginning to need oxygen, and the sight that greeted me wasn't a good one.  
The carriers were coming down. Fires and explosions riddled all three and the effect was something out of this world; something that wasn't supposed to ever be seen on earth. I watched in grim satisfaction as they began crashing into the water far from me – as I was just off the shore – and then reality set back in.  
I swam back to shore and began racing toward the burning carriers, hoping that Steve would make it out okay as well; if anyone refused to die, it was that guy.  
I looked up at the carrier I guessed was the one I had fallen from and watched as more rubble fell from it and raced even faster, my heart racing but not from exertion. I hadn't lost too many precious people in my life, but there also weren't a lot of people in my life to lose, anyway. I'd lost Little Tommy because I hadn't been there when Uncle George attacked him. I can't lose Steve as well because I wasn't there when he needed me.  
Steve had already fought his best friend, but if it came down to it would he be able to kill him? I knew he couldn't; that's not the kind of person he is.  
I looked up at the carrier again and since I was now closer I could vaguely make out the shapes of the rubble, so my heart stopped when I saw someone plummeting down to the water face first. Someone with a metal arm. Did Steve do it? Did Steve win, or had the Soldier killed him and was now making his getaway?  
Panic burst through me like never before and I ran faster than I ever had, afraid of what I'd see. It felt like eternity before I was right across from where the Soldier had landed in the water, but in reality it had only been a few minutes, and what I saw shocked me.  
I jumped behind a tree before the Soldier could spot me, and, crouching low, I peeked an eye out to look once more: the Soldier was swimming slowly toward the shore, lugging an unconscious Steve behind him.  
Pulling my head back to reduce the risk of being found out, I suddenly didn't see the Soldier as the man who had almost killed Sam and Steve, who had shot Natasha and stabbed me; I saw a man ripped out of his time like I once was, who was manipulated into doing horrible things, and I saw a man who didn't have anywhere to go back to now that HYDRA was gone and would be facing this new world all on his own, probably hurting and confused…and I saw myself.  
A plan began forming in my head, and even though I tried to convince myself that it really wasn't that horrible of an idea, I knew that things would be tough and Steve probably wouldn't forgive me for a long time, but I also knew that I needed to do it.  
My ears perked up as I caught the sound of disturbed rocks and knew the Soldier had reached the shore. I peeked my head out very slightly once again and saw the Soldier standing over Steve, watching, and I wondered myself if the soaked, bruised, and bloody man was still alive, and then he began stirring very slightly and the Soldier began to leave.  
I stood up quickly and stepped from my hiding spot.  
"I can help you." The Soldier froze at my words, back towards me, but luckily didn't try and kill me right away. He simply stopped moving.  
"I can help you get your memories back." Or at least I hoped I could. HYDRA had made me heal a lot of things, even going so far to have me take away disabilities, but the problem with disabilities was that there wasn't anything wrong with their brains; they had just developed differently than most people. I had been able to heal countless other problems with brains, though, and I hoped that I could help him recover from the damage done by the machine.  
At hearing my words he turned to me – almost slowly, but with a certain sense of urgency – and there was a barely realized question in his eyes.  
"I need protection. People know things about me now that will make them want to get their hands on me, and you can keep them away from me." The next part would be harder to explain. "In return I can try to help you get your memories back."  
His brows pulled down ever slightly.  
"How?" He asked gruffly.  
"I have my ways." Cryptic. "And if it doesn't work you can always drop me off somewhere. Or, you know, kill me." Because he could. Despite my fighting skills, the serum running through his veins was stronger than the serum running through mine, and his reflexes and strength would always surpass my own.  
At the reminder that he could overpower me the Soldier seemed to get less tense, and then he abruptly turned around and walked away. I took that as my welcome and I took off after him, pausing for a second to look back at Steve one more time and make sure he really was okay, then went after the Soldier again.  
I'll see you again, I thought to Steve as I walked. Hopefully it wasn't in death, though, because that meant someone had killed me before I could see him again – and the odds were pointing at the Soldier being my murderer.  
It would take Steve a while to forgive me for leaving with his best friend, and he would no doubt feel betrayed when I don't tell him where the Soldier is hiding, but right now my focus was on healing the Soldier and turning him from a weapon back into a human, and even though I knew Steve had a big heart, and I kept telling myself he would forgive me someday, I still hope he doesn't hate me for this.  
…  
I trailed after the Soldier, watching as he assessed all of the people around us for threats, though there really wasn't anyone around. Due to our suspicious attire we had stuck to sneaking around the allies, the Soldier always watching for cameras and people who could give our position away to anyone looking.  
The first step of our journey was unspoken: get away from D.C. unseen by HYDRA.  
Finally the ally opened to a decrepit street that smelled like both a landfill and a sewer, and there were a few rundown cars parked up and down it.  
Following the Soldier to one of the less junky cars, I watched as he, too, hotwired the car, and I took a seat in the back while he drove, not really wanting to take the passenger seat with him so close.  
Chills ran down my spine whenever I really thought about the situation: I was in a car with the best assassins in history, driving toward who knows where so we could hide from the world together. Soon I would find out if I could really heal his mind, and if not he would no doubt kill me. Or he might just get angry at me randomly and kill me. Maybe things would turn out alright, I tried to think optimistically, but the odds saw me lying dead in a ditch somewhere.  
I took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to fix my attention on the scenery passing by, ignoring all of the sounds made by the car as it tried to keep up the fast speed, and the assassin in the car, and closed my eyes, imagining I was back home with Little Tommy, eating dinner at the table with mother back when father was still alive and we had enough money that she didn't have to go to the mills and the factories, and my heart gradually slowed.  
No matter what happened from here on out, I just had to do my best, and hopefully that would be enough.


	18. Epilogue

Epilogue  
The End  
(And The Beginning)  
I flipped through the phone book quickly, slipping a glance behind me to make sure I wasn’t being watched, and finally came across the number I was looking for: Sam Wilson, and even though there were a large amount of Sam Wilsons I was able to pick his out by the D.C. area code.  
I put a piece of change that I had swiped from a tip jar into the machine and quickly dialed his number. I listened to it ring, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t answer, and let out a breath when I was left with his voicemail.  
“Hey Sam, it’s me. Sorry for calling, but Steve’s number isn’t in the phone book and I don’t know which name Natasha goes by in the phone book, so you were the only option. But I need you to get a message to Steve for me. I’m with him – The Winter Soldier – and I’m going to try to heal his mind from what HYDRA did to him. Maybe he’ll remember more if I do, and so I can’t tell you where we are.” I closed my eyes, knowing Steve would be angry with me. “I know Steve will be angry at me for not telling you where we are, but I can’t. I have to try and help him, and I can’t do that if he thinks I’m going to stab him in the back. What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry, because I’m going to need you guys to trust me to do what’s right even though we haven’t known each other for very long. So could you…could you ask him to please forgive me? He was the first person to really make me feel like someone again, not something and I just…I’m sorry.”  
I put the phone back roughly, listening as the quarter clanged inside while I tried to recompose myself. Unshed tears clouded my vision, but I knew better than to cry; crying doesn’t really do anything, and I had to get back to the car before the Soldier noticed my absence. I blinked the tears away, soaking them up on my shirt and sniffed lightly before turning around and crossing the street, stepping back into the car.  
It wasn’t a moment too soon, either, as the Soldier came out of the gas station – metal arm hiding under a ratty sweater found in the trunk – not long after, opening the hood of the stolen car and putting oil in, having already gassed it up when we first got to the station. Who knew the Winter Soldier knew how to take care of a car? I guessed nothing really surprised me anymore when it came to him.  
I looked out into the dark night, watching the cars zoom by of a few unfortunate souls who were still up at this hour. It was a miracle we had found a 24 hour gas station, really. For a long time all we had passed were dark buildings and locked doors, and to pay the Soldier had pulled out a large wad of bills that had been protected from his jump in the water by the folds of his leather jacket. So we were set, I guess.  
Something panged near my heart and I frowned at it. I had already become associated with this emotion, since it had hit me once I realized that the Soldier wasn’t going to even acknowledge my existence, much less kill me, and after it had hit me a few times I had realized it as loneliness. I missed the people I had grown so close to in just a few days. I missed Natasha’s smirk-smiles, Steve’s sincere eyes, and Sam’s humor, and though I didn’t entirely know what would’ve happened with me with the mission accomplished – whether Fury would still keep me with S.H.I.E.L.D., or if I’d have gone back to living on the streets – but I’d like to think that no matter what happened I could at least stay in contact with them.  
I warily looked up through the rearview mirror, and from my angle I could clearly see a portion of his face. His eyes were set on the road ahead of him, so I was free to study what I could.  
His hair was brown – a few shades lighter than my own – and reached his shoulders. His strong jaw made me wonder where he was from, or perhaps where his parents were from, but the thing that kept drawing my attention was the single eye I could see: it was completely blank.  
I had met the Winter Soldier before – I had trained with him often, more often than I had with the other soldiers that were added to HYDRA’s collection a long while after I was captured, and his eyes had always been blank. Unlike the other soldiers he hadn’t volunteered for this, I realized. He didn’t like what he did, he simply did it.  
I realized I was staring about the same time I realized he was now looking at me through the mirror, his eye piercing my soul, and I jerked my head away to look out of the window as if I had been burned.  
After a moment I darted my eyes up to make sure he wasn’t still watching me, and he wasn’t, but this time I noticed the fading bruise and scabbed over scrapes on his face, and was reminded harshly of my own injuries.  
Somewhere along the way the stab wound in my shoulder had been reopened, but it was once again closed and healing. The scrape on my arm where a bullet had grazed it was healing as well, the blood having stopped and scabbed over. Further investigation showed that the back of my head was bloody as well, probably since it had been slammed against things a few too many times, and that was still bleeding sluggishly because head wounds bleed a ridiculous amount. My ribs throbbed from when he had punched me earlier, and I figured they had been bruised, not broken, and I had already reset the bone in my nose – the feeling of the bone mending was nothing if not unpleasant – and my back was no doubt bruised from falling into water from such a height. Aside from that, though, everything just ached.  
Against my will, my eyes began to force themselves shut. It had been a long time since I’d gotten any good sleep and my body was hurting and broken, but I was in the presence of a man who could kill me without blinking. Despite my fear my eyes continued to drift shut and I slumped against the window, asleep.   
I was unaware of how the Soldier’s eyes came up once I was asleep and began to study me like I had him, and despite his own pain as his arm recovered from being popped out of its socket, and the ache in his head that was caused by the man earlier – his mission – he felt a pang of recognition.  
[o]  
Voila, I'm done. For a while there I was swamped and wasn't able to get anymore out to you guys, but I have time once again. I'll start getting my other stories to you guys, including the sequel to No One, pretty soon.


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